Not the Love of Fairy Tales
by
Sarah Varcas
The Moon is full in the 3rd degree of Scorpio at 5:25 UT. Occurring while Venus, Uranus and Eris form a conjunction in Aries, it reminds us of the power of love to see us through darkness and its iconoclastic role in these changing times. Traditional, often religious, teachings are challenged by this Moon. It can be all too easy to churn out claims of forgiveness with little substance to back them up, or to profess love whilst turning away in secret. With Saturn now in Sagittarius we are bound to live what we profess, not just verbalise spiritual mores whilst living our own watered-down version of them! If we truly believe that love is the way out of fear, separation and conflict then we must be that love, not just pay lip-service to it.
Which raises questions as to the nature of love. What is it really? And why is it so important in our world today? It may seem strange to ask. Of course love is vital in a world riddled with conflict! But how do we open our hearts to the war-monger and those who perpetuate suffering, inequality and oppression for their own ends? It’s easy to love the underdog, to fight for a cause, but how do we love those who make that cause necessary in the first place? And, perhaps most important of all, how do we love ourselves when we know so intimately our own flaws and failings? Much religious discourse has stifled such discussion for fear of having to admit we don’t know what love is and even when we do we struggle to embody it! It’s easy to say ‘I love you’ when everything’s hunky dory, but when it’s all hitting the fan what does it even mean to love, and how do we ‘do’ love then?
This Moon raises these questions not to provide convenient answers but to highlight the complexities of living in a world on the brink. A world in which religious and spiritual teaching has been used as a weapon to judge, condemn and destroy (often in the name of love…). Where difference has become a reason to fear and reject not explore and connect. In the light of this Moon we are first asked to reflect upon our own emotional well-being, for love begins at home, with us and our feelings towards ourselves. If we recoil from our own inner pain it becomes all the harder to recognise and embrace the pain of others. We may condemn the violence of war and the oppression of poverty. We may fight to free those who live in bondage. But if we do so whilst committing repeated acts of emotional violence upon ourselves – judging and condemning our own pain, denying our vulnerabilities or simply refusing to acknowledge the sadness, anger or fear that lurks within – the incongruence of our lives will rise up to thwart us in the long run. This inner violence, hidden from the world but powerfully destructive, lies at the root of much that needs healing today. Without addressing it in our own lives nothing that we do ‘out there’ will hold for the long haul.
This Full Moon reminds us that love is a rectifying force which brings things back into a state of balance. As such it may not be the fluffy pink sparkly thing we thought it was! It can require great might and power to rectify a situation gravely out of kilter. Love may come with hurricane force sweeping away obstacles to its dominion. It may break us apart before it reforms us whole, for only then can it reach those places we have strived so hard to protect from even our own inner gaze.
In the light of this Moon we are invited to embrace our own darkness and know it not as a personal failing or a cause of shame, but as a collective experience in which we all play a part. No one is without fear, anger or shame given the circumstances to trigger it. We all carry our part of the shadow self as much as we each contain the love that keeps this world forever made anew. It’s okay to be all of these things. It is who we are. The key is to accept that fact and acknowledge those things we’d prefer were not the case: our anger, hatred, depression, anxiety. These are human experiences that can connect us with each other, not foster the need for ever higher walls to keep each other out.
So if you need support at the time of this Moon, seek it. If you see someone else struggling to hold it together, let them know it may just be okay to fall apart instead. Emotions are powerful things, a formidable force that assails us apparently from nowhere! But they are all us, our own internal world blowing up a storm. Knowing that storm and charting its course takes honesty, openness and loving acceptance of all that we are. The more we can embrace our internal storms the better we can manage external ones. This Moon illuminates the need to do both and the power of authentic love to forge a healing path ahead. It may not look like the love of fairy tales, but it will certainly work some magic!
Sarah Varcas