When the Sun Weds the Moon

Bringing Forth the Love and Wisdom of the Feminine Principle

"When the moon shall shine as bright as the sun, the Messiah will come." Hasidic saying

We cannot escape what we are - human, instinctual, flesh and bone creatures. For millennia we have tried. We’ve pretended to be solely mental, rational, intellectual beings. Mental is like the sun; too bright without the softness of the moon. Our moon, the beautiful darkness of our instinctual nature, has been sorely missed and is desperately needed. Seeds cannot gestate in the sun. They need the darkness and moisture of nourishing soil. Life cannot exist solely in the light. Life needs the dark, too. They are symbiotic.

This is true within each of us. We cannot, and never could, jettison our darkness. Somewhere, someone began to put it away, to pretend that the light, the sun, the rational mind should reign king, and then many, and more, and then more, followed suit until many generations were spoon-fed this notion at the earliest age. Bright light without the dark moist makes for brittle beings, not soft-flesh creatures who still know that soil is home, that trees are wise, and that oceans feed. Mother’s milk might have kept the moon alive in a child’s psyche as she grew into her mind’s prowess, but mothers learned at the earliest age to ascend to their mental thrones, too, leaving behind their knowing hips and the succulence of the womb.

Most humans do it. It happened so long ago. Generations and generations ago. There’s no blame to be placed. We are in this boat together. We are witnessing the effects of this split in the world. So painfully separated from our most natural environment, from our bodies, from our souls. And we are beginning to witness the healing effects of coming back into communion with the yin, moon-like nature of life within us.

For many years, I wrote about the re-awakening of this yin, feminine consciousness within women at the blog, Unabashedly Female. I had to live this re-awakening through my own body, my art, and my words. I had to share these experiences even though at the beginning I didn’t quite know why. I learned to put words and ideas to what I was feeling and knowing in my inner world. As a woman, as a female human being, I was remembering, and with remembering, I was “polishing the moon.” (Anne Baring) In an important way, women do indeed have a role to play in this reclamation of the wholeness of the human being. And, we all, all genders, in our unique way, our unique expression, are being called to live unabashedly in the human body that is the home of our existence.

There is a Source within each of us, within every being, a Source of our lives, a Source of our nature, a Source of our creativity, a Source of our love. This Source is called by many names, yet has no name and can never be fully known. Neither religion nor spirituality are needed to know this Source moved through you, yet many find them supportive. When we polish the moon, we “make the moon shine so that it softens the sun-brightness of our present consciousness.” Anne Baring

We are here to be human creatures, to live and love as imperfect beings, to allow ourselves to grow and evolve, play and learn, and to live and love as humanly and humanely as we can. We are not machines. We are not robots. We are flesh and blood creatures who have lost touch with our heartbeats, the marrow of our bones, the quickening of our instincts, and the knowing of our souls.

We need to be reminded and to remind, that we are human, that we are fallible and make mistakes, that we harm and we heal, that we, like every single human creature, are learning who we are, what this human life is about, and our place in this world with every action we take. We fall, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes gracefully. We rise again, unsure, uncertain, yet willing.

Even though we are incredibly unique, we are so much more alike than we are different. In every moment, as we navigate this life as best we can, every other human being is attempting to do the very same thing at the very same time. Acknowledging this in the moments of our anguish, fear, shame remorse, and self-judgment, we come to accept that we are the totality of consciousness, that we cannot run away from, and can finally take compassionate refuge in, the fullness of our humanity.

We are not alone.

We live through Source.

We are surrounded by each other in this beautiful sea of humanity.

We are polishing the moon.