The Equinox Embodied

IT TAKES “contemplative guts” to pass the test of March; to allow the great Aries-to-Pisces wheel of incarnation to grind to a halt, pause for a moment of sober self-reckoning in the netherworld between incarnations, then stand up again into a more soul-animated pole of flesh.

This is the course-correcting power of the March 20th Equinox: God’s annual prod to return to our undizzied center for guidance and refreshment. The first two weeks of March (while Sun, Venus and Neptune are huddled together in Pisces and the post Mercury retrograde shadow period is still in play): the ideal time for deep retreat.

Too busy to duck out of the matrix? No problem. A more casual version of retreat happens every time we insert a “divine pause” into ego’s identity-strutting blather. After a moment of meditative realignment, the individuating fire of Aries erupts once again– innocent, fresh and Springlike– from the boundless being of Pisces.

This is the Equinox embodied.

Set the alarm

Paradoxically, the longer our break from time is, the greater our need for temporal structure. Why? Because we need a mind-managing, time-managing ego at peace with consensus reality, to wake up inside the dream– not from it.

In practice, this means balancing sobriety, structure and focus (Virgo) with inner tenderness, wonder and revelation (Pisces).

Without sobriety and intoxication in balance, personal retreat quickly devolves into soulless clinical technique (lower octave Virgo) or spaced-out, premature reabsorption (lower octave Pisces).

Virgo Toolkit

Clear beginning and ending times, digestible practice periods, understandable intentions, some kind of witnessing technique, mental summarizing of insights and well-chosen psychic support from other allies in awakening (teacher, spiritual friend).

Pisces Toolkit

Faith in the divine unfolding through us, willingness to let preconceptions dissolve, suffer periods of disorientation, and vigilantly witness states of fear, flatness, intoxication, revelation and have enough humility to pray for help if/when our Ageless Innocence is under merciless mental attack.

A truly Soul-nourishing retreat clarifies our purpose in time and stabilizes our sugar-spike glimpses of “One Being” so we can resume our karmic duties in in the world as “space with a face.”

Thank you: dharma teachers, teachings and retreats!

Disciplined Wandering

The structural components of a healthy retreat also apply to everyday life.

Goal setting and daily routine give orphaned ego an anxiety-relieving micro-dose of preconception and personal doer-ship within which the soul can then practice its deeper discipline: wandering the dream of separation, alive to the Shepherding Presence and the fullness of Being.

That’s right: “Disciplined Wandering” is our true vocation: the “day job” no employer or economic downturn can ever take away from us.

The source of suffering? Easy: expecting jobs, friends, partners, homes, possessions, pleasure, status and standard of living to bring fulfillment, in themselves, instead of valuing them as beautiful, makeshift “laboratories of awareness” in which to conscientiously practice our “in the world, but not of it” Aries/Pisces “Equinoxing.”

Equinox Invocation

Burning center of the wheel of life! Infuse us with Your radiant stillness and meditative poise, so we can gaze mercifully into the mirror of the “imaginary others” and keep “fearing forward” into this rough-and-tumble dream sport: mad enough to be mortal, sane enough to disappear.

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