My Enemy, My Teacher
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Written by Jamie Epstein
It’s Tuesday, October 22, & Moon is in Gemini, in the starspace or Nakshatra called Ardra. Gemini invites us to try new stuff, learn something new, & share our discoveries with others. What are you learning & what do you want to share? How are you sharing what you are learning? Hopefully with lightness & generosity, not dogmatically.
Ardra is, well, no way around it, a star of destruction, of tearing something down so something new can arise. It is ruled by the turbulent aspect of Shiva called Rudra, whose name can be translated as “the howler,” as in screaming into a thunderstorm, releasing pent-up pain-sorrow-frustration & shedding a few tears. This asterism reminds us that there is no gain without pain, that the Sun always comes out after it rains, that “this” too will pass, that the darkest hour is right before the dawn. may it be so personally & globally.
It’s the sixth lunar day (tithi), the sixth phase of the waning moon, until 2 p.m. MDT, then the seventh. The sixth gives us the power to manifest on a material level, cement it in, like the foundations of a building, so we can give tangible form to it. The seventh gives us the courage to stay on track but just might give us a lesson in humility if we take our courage too far, get all up in our head with it.
Tuesday is ruled by Mars, our warrior spirit, who gives us the ability to duke it out with our enemies. Alas, Mars is not in his happy place now & is not going to be until … June—yikes! Which means he is going to have a tendency to see enemies everywhere, to blame others rather than look within, see what he is contributing to the situation/perception. I mean, just look at what’s happening with the saber-rattling between the united states & Iran-Russia-China! Mars is connected to our nervous system, which all this time will be getting overloaded with too much thinking & too much feeling, exhausting us. I don’t know about you, but I don’t make good decisions, see clearly when I’m tired. So it’s important not to overdo, not to take on more than we can handle, that we keep ourselves nourished, lest we succumb to wrong thinking.
“The enemy is a very good teacher.”—the Dalai Lama
This is a time to learn, not fight!
And that’s your daily bliss! Which is a sort of lunar weather report. May it allow you to align with the day’s cosmic energy so you can find & create a little more bliss.