Meditations and Rituals for December's Full Moon

Photo by Angus Thermopylae; creative commons license.

The December Full Moon, aka the Full Cold Moon, occurs in Gemini on December 12, 2008 at 10:38 AM Central time here in the Florida Panhandle.  This Full Moon, I feel, is all about having an “idea of who we really are.”

Gemini is a sign of  mental processes—communications, ideas, intellect, flexibility, adaptability, changeability.  The usual easygoing qualities of this particular moon are tempered, as mentioned last month, with some rather tense struggles astrologically. This year, people are much more serious, more tense, still licking their wounds from the economy, from job layoffs, and from a general sense of restriction and cutbacks even in their favorite relationships.

For those of you who routinely read my suggestions for meditations, you know how this works.  I share this unraveling of images I have just before a New Moon, Full Moon, and/or Eclipse and you’re welcome to use what makes sense to you.   For most of 2008, I’ve been following this “story” of a river of emotions connected with Moon phases–everything from bridges over rivers to the structure that holds the river in its banks, to surfing the river, to becoming the river, to rising above the river in a parasail…all taking me “around the riverbend” to a beautiful new vista that is lush and green.   For those of you who know me personally, you’ve watched in amazement and then horror at how some of these influences have played out in my life.  (But don’t worry—I have a feeling that it’s about to turn back to amazement again.)  Here are the links to previous meditations:

Bridges — http://thespiritualeclectic.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/ritualmeditation-what-this-june-moon-is-good-for/

Riverbanks/Structures — http://thespiritualeclectic.wordpress.com/2008/07/13/serious-moonlight-ideas-for-your-july-full-moon-meditations-and-rituals/

Surfing/Sailing — http://thespiritualeclectic.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/1-august-2008-solar-eclipse-rituals-and-meditations-for-the-new-moon-in-leo/

Parasailing — http://thespiritualeclectic.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/16-august-2008-lunar-eclipse-rituals-and-meditations-for-the-full-moon-in-aquarius/

Becoming the River — http://thespiritualeclectic.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/harvest-moon-in-pisces-september-2008s-full-moon-meditation/

Rocks — http://thespiritualeclectic.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/hunter-moon-in-aries-october-2008s-full-moon-meditation/

Rebuilding the Riverbanks — http://thespiritualeclectic.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/tension-vs-recovery-november-2008%e2%80%99s-full-moon-in-taurus-meditation/ 

Which brings us to this Full Moon’s meditation:

In this meditation, I find myself in the exact physical spot as at the end of the last meditation, though time has clearly passed.  I am still on the riverbank after being bashed against rocks in the current, but I am no longer visibly bruised and I’m no longer bleeding or shivering.  I have caught my breath, rested, begun molding new riverbanks out of the mud and rocks in my hands.  The course of the river has not yet changed, but I have been steadily rebuilding the structures of my emotional life and reclaiming the joy of sitting in sunshine.

I am not in the powerful emotional flow of the river but close enough to it to leap back into it or scramble up the slight incline behind me.   I note that I am completely without clothes in this meditation.  It’s something I never think of in these meditations, but it’s important in this one.  Not because I am vulnerable and have completely bared my heart and soul and then crawled wounded and half-dead onto the riverbank.  No, the lack of clothes is notable because I am covered in mud, from head to toe.  Black, rich, river mud.  While I have been rebuilding, I have allowed myself to be coated in this dark sheath of comforting—but sometimes tingling and sometimes scratchy—mud.  But it’s cooling and it feels good because it covers the soreness of the bruises that are no longer evident.  It hides my wounds.

That’s not the only difference in this meditation.  While the last few mediations have been full of storm and dark, the sun is out now, shining warmly on me under this Full Cold Moon.  I would not have thought it. 

I walk lightly just beyond the riverbank, onto the lush green grass of the beautiful plains that were waiting for me just around the river’s bend, the ones I saw just before I hit the boulders in the current.  I feel the grass under my muddy bare feet.  I feel the sunshine warming the mud caked to my skin.  The mud is no longer slick but dry now, and flaking off.  I raise my face to the sun, and feel the mud drying in my hair and on my face.

Then I do something very unexpected…even more unexpected than wearing nothing but mud or the fact that the sun in shining in my world again.  I walk back to the river, back to the emotional current that hurt me so only two moons ago.

I dip my bare and gray-muddy feet in the water and wash away the mud.   Some takes a little rubbing, some does not.  In place of the mud, my normally darker skin that occasionally shows my Native American roots is now a bright and new pink, unlike skin I’ve ever had in my life.  It is healed and the blood flow has given it a fresh and unusually bright glow.  The skin on my bare feet sparkles in the water. 

I don’t dive back into the river.  No, not ready for that yet.  But I do crouch and wash my hands in the river, loosening the caked mud until it flows away and my hands are bright and fresh, almost shiny in the water and sunlight.  My feet and hands are in the water, yet my feet are on solid ground now.  No flailing in the water or flying recklessly.  Just enjoying the feel of the current over my flesh but anchored this time.  More conservative in my adventures, at least for the moment, but not afraid of the water either, and certainly not swearing I’ll never wade into it again. 

I scoop up handfuls of clear water and wash my skin until all of the mud is gone and I stand in the sunlight, fresh and new and a little sparkly.  The mud from rebuilding and taking time for myself is gone now, healing left in its place.  There are still some sore spots under the shiny new skin but only I know they’re there.  Some bruises take longer to heal than others, and even when the skin no longer shows the painful color, the damage is bone deep and takes a little longer.  Yet,  there’s a freshness now, a newness.  I walk back into the grass and sunlight, this time wearing only my fresher skin, and lift my clean face to the sunshine. 

Although there is much intensity and struggle around me, this moment marks a change that is coming quickly.  For all the agony of the boulders I could not navigate, for all the recuperation time I have given myself,  for all those tiny steps I have taken to get my life–if not the river–back on course…there is sunshine and newness coming, and everything around me seems to sparkle. 

Tags: Astrology, December 2008, full moon, Gemini, Meditation, Rituals