The beautiful illustration of "Kaulana Mahina" (the Hawaiian Moon Calendar) is done by Holly Camp found in an article in Maui No Ka 'Oi Magazine written by Paul Wood
These (yesterday, today, tomorrow and Thursday) are the 'Ole Moons if you keep track of time via Kaulana Mahina The Hawaiian Moon Calendar. The anahulu (10 nights/days of the week) leading up to the full moon includes 4 phases of 'Ole Moons. On the other end of the moon's near 30 days/nights of illumination, there are 3 phases of 'Ole Moons. Traditionally, our ancestors knew to keep these days/nights as times of weeding, repairing, resting, and resting the cultivation or harvesting of ka 'aina a me ke kai; leaving planting and harvesting from land and sea for other times of the month. The Kanaka Maoli are not the only culture which attunes to the inseparable nature of give and take between all-that-is. Most indigenous people lived and maintained life with that value.
As a life practice in today's reality the application of living, planting, fishing and being in sync with the moon is one that begins when the makua becomes aware. Solar time and the male domination of the sun-driven culture is addictive and subtle. We tell time and set our goals primarily by solar time. The shift into living by mahina came for me and my husband as a result of a major crisis in identity and lifestyle. From that loss we came to know the regularity of moon time and have not been quite the same since. I have written many articles about The Hawaiian Moon Calendar on this blog. And have facilitated on-line workshops focused on The Hawaiian Moon Calendar. You can link to those workshops here. They are open to the public now.
The 'Ole Moons are a time of pause, not just one day/night but several during the moon's monthly cycle. It's a rest and reflective time and though I love the sight and feel of all of mahina's 'faces' it is the 'ole that affects me with much appreciation. Surrender applies to 'ole moons. Being replaces doing. Yes, here I am writing and it makes me feel the appreciation for those Hawaiian roots that tether me when I feel lonely for the warmth of Hawaii ... reflective and weeping, I greet my roots through this writing and give thanks. New work can wait for other times. Awareness of Kaulana Mahina is the beginning, an idea that tickles at our minds and our gut. Integration of that perspective is the gentle and patient application into body knowing; that takes time.
" I still carry the land so deep in my bones that I cannot bear to go back...Perhaps to know so familiar a place better it must become strange again."
-Ellen Meloy, The Anthropology of Turquoise.
I am reading two books by Ellen Meloy at the moment, Eating Stone (her last and final book) and The Anthropology of Turquoise. Choosing not to read the books from front cover to end, this morning as Pete and I sat to eat oatmeal together I flipped to a page in The Anthropology of Turquoise and found the lines quoted above. From her essay "Waiting Its Occasions" the descriptions contain threads broad and lumpy weaving place, people, legacies and spirit together in a heart-rich rendering. "The true heart of a place does not come in a week's vacation. To know it well, as Mary Austin wrote, one must "wait its occasions"--follow full seasons and cycles, a retreating snowpack, a six-year drought, a ponderosa pine eating up a porch. Meloy writes about memories of her Sierra days of "witless youth and enflamed senses" in this essay. Sparked by Meloy's words I consider the naturalist's essays in concert with the cycles and landscape I navigate as sun, moon, earth, planets and stars align with the life that becomes my memories.
The Solar Eclipse occurs when the Sun, Moon and Earth line up in such a
way that the Moon obscures the Sun from the Earth. This can only occur
during a [ New Moon phase.] The human response to the Solar Eclipse is both
physical and psychological. It is not uncommon for the individual to
develop an awareness of change shortly before, during and after an
eclipse. Solar Eclipses focus the spotlight onto the Self...The Solar Eclipse can help you to regroup and focus, for a while, on an
area in your life that may need extra attention or change.
New Moon, the Hilo Moon in the Hawaiian Moon Calendar is a time of new beginnings. With the solar eclipse this month (days before my 65th birthday) I am aware of the bridge of opportunity available. Like the old Mission Impossible line, "Your mission, should you choose to accept it ..." I can't cross that bridge if I don't know its there. The astrology of the solar eclipse in the sign of Scorpio using the Equal House System shines into my 11th House of friends, relationships, affiliations. Drawing again from LunarLiving, I found this:
With the Solar Eclipse in the 11th House: The focus is on society and the human race. Group interests and
organizational involvement become more significant in one's life. It is
typically through eleventh house relationships and experiences that
charitable viewpoints develop. One's own sense of worth is advanced when
selfless humanitarian acts become a common practice or accepted as a
natural decree of the universe.
Small and significant affiliations link me to the community where Pete and I live. More than ever, at least more than has been the case for years now, I am enjoying company. Releasing myself from the isolation of illness and trauma, my boundaries are healthier and fit me better today. Moment to moment, and day into night I come to know this self because, for a time (years) I did not know who I was or where I was. To become familiar again, I needed to become a hermit cloistered in tinier and tinier spaces with little outside stimulation. Feeling my way through the moments allowed confidence to grow from the inside out ... slowly.While I cloistered, my 12th House Moon (in Capricorn) was able to restore the emotional ground around me: I wrote, I wrote, I write. Servicing my self through blogging, and creating one after another, the act of witnessing my life served (12th House). Healing and recovering in the privacy of my world in the woods, a body of writing has toned my muscle for affiliation. I know myself as I am now not as I was before or at the peak of the illness. That bridge of opportunity is reworked, marked "Mission Impossible" and lit with the illumination of a Hilo Moon of new beginnings.
If you need one more idea about making sure of the energy of this Solar Eclipse, click here for an insight from Elsa P. Set an intention for this New Moon.
Where does the Scorpio New Moon and Solar Eclipse illuminate your astrology (what house)?
The total solar eclipse will be visible in the southern hemisphere of Earth November 13-14, 2012. Click here to check out when the solar eclipse is visible in your part of the world.
