It's past 3 AM! Come outside with me and BREATHE!

For many years, I've awakened between 2:50 and 3:30AM almost every night. As I've gotten to this amazing age of 73, it's also a convenient time to head down the hall to the bathroom. Sometimes I slip on my shoes and a robe or sweater depending on the weather and step outside to my small porch that faces my front yard open to the sky. Almost immediately I take a deep, full breath as I close my eyes and, when they open if I'm lucky, on a clear night, I find Jupiter or Venus, the Pleiades or Orion or the Big Dipper. And most rare and magical, I might glimpse the fading whoosh of a meteor passing in front of me. 

I need the deep breath and sky to help me with whatever issue or question was circling in my brain when I woke up. I've read that it's common at the Lung Time (3:00-5:00AM) according to Traditional Chinese Medicine to be dealing with worry or guilt or unresolved issues of pain or grief. 

The time between 3:20 AM to 3:40 AM, is also known as the Brahma Muhurta, defined to be the best time to connect with the higher frequencies of the universe. This is the hour of possibility which means that the seed of spirituality that has been sown inside you starts sprouting. Yogis describe Brahma Muhurta as the best time for meditation.

Amazing what a quiet porch under the inky clear sky can do for your soul. You have started to respond to the consecration of the universe according to Sadhguru, “...if you become in rhythm with the life you will also wake up somewhere after 3 AM.”

Tomorrow's Full Moon in Aries will arrive around 4:57AM here in southern Illinois. Come join me. I'll probably be up, inhaling all the beauty of this world, grateful once again that I can rise on my own, breathe and exhale with ease, smell the fading of September and feel the dew on these feet that have walked so many miles. It's a good life and I am thankful for it all! Perhaps that's all the enlightenment I'll ever need.

Blessed Be!

On this Virgo New Moon

 And the hint/scent of autumn is definitely in the air or is that simply this land sighing with deep relief that the heat has passed? After five days away and the pleasure of caring for my 11 month old grandson, I return to my simple but lovely home near the Shawnee National Forest. I'm grateful for the watchful eyes of neighbors who walked their dogs twice a day around the yard who sniff and pee and let the wild things know that I'm only temporarily away. Another friend slipped onto my porch to water the inside plants. I am as always grateful for these connections. Deeply grateful for friends and for the peaceful residence I have been gifted.

A New Moon signifies a time for setting or seeding new intentions and this one is particularly powerful for me in many ways. I have a Mars in Virgo so I should (should?) feel significantly driven to complete, finish up projects, clean the house, reclaim my routines of self-care. Mostly, I just want to read and write and sit on my porch while this weather allows, before the snows will close it down except on certain sunny days. I feel compelled to walk the woods I have neglected all summer due to the heat and the ticks and the chiggers which absolutely love me. But I have promises to keep: to check the turtles in the old lagoon, to mark a few paw paw saplings for a friend to dig in a few months, to see what autumn flowers I want to wrap with paper bags to collect their seeds. As a volunteer with Project Wingspan, I'll be heading out to places around here in a few weeks to do the same on a larger scale. I am disappointed that no monarch caterpillars have so far laid eggs on the milkweed I have carefully avoided mowing this year. I pray that is not some omen. So many butterflies have visited the zinnias and other flowers by the house yet I have only counted three or four monarchs this year. I force myself not to imagine that next year there may be none. How can we humans allow that to happen?

I say my gratitude for the winged ones who have made it here and send energetic love to those who are struggling in other places to find safety, food, shelter, in order to birth and renew their species. Sounds too much like humans in so many parts of this beloved planet who also suffer from the ignorance of war, prejudice, environmental factors, poverty, or lack of compassion for their plight. 

On this New Moon I collect the seeds from all the dying flowers, to dry and put away in the multiples of recycled glass jars I save throughout the year for just such a purpose. These are my 'intentions.' Who knows what will blossom next year but I want to be ready to make my 'offering' to Gaia next year, to throw out the seeds, hopeful for more butterflies and bees. It's not much, my small assembly of glass jars with handwritten labels. But I intend to be part of the cycle of life as best I can for as long as I am able.  

~Blessed New Moon, September 14, 2023 - 8:40pm CDT~

More information about this New Moon from Pam Gregory, astrologer.