As we continue our descent into longer nights in the Northern hemisphere — and as many of our other-than-human kin slow down around us, going underground, hibernating beneath a blanket of cold and darkness — and, as what is coming up are the fruiting bodies of the decomposing ones, the ones who do the sacred work of breakdown, decay and detoxification — there can be extra tension registered in our bodies. Because instead of slowing down, breaking down and honoring what is complete, many of us are in various ways ramping up for the holidays, for holiday travels, purchases, family gatherings. This comes on top of the other non-holiday-related ways we find ourselves grinding in a society built without regard to cycles and rhythms … as well as on top of our efforts to make the world a more loving place, responding to pain with what medicine we have, seeing and creating beauty and joy as best we can.

So, on this Full Moon in Gemini, I want to invite you/myself/us-together to breathe space around any tension or friction that exists between the speed of the holidays and what your animal body might be asking for in response to winter. I want to breathe space around it so that we don’t make this sensation of tension heavier than it needs to be by adding extra meaning to it, or telling ourselves stories about who we are or who others are from a place of reacting to, merging with or resisting that tension.

The invitation is to lean into allowing this tension to just be here, and expanding our capacity a little more to hold it —

and as we do that

we are also breathing space and expanding our capacity to hold a core paradox that lives within all of us — a paradox that this season may be a metaphor and manifestation of —where there’s an innate impulse to get quiet, go inward and hide, and also a deep hunger to get out there, to let ourselves shine and be seen as we are.

We have both impulses. And one is not better than the other.

In all of us, there lives an impulse to curl up in a protective darkness to allow a process to unfold, to allow something inexplicable, not-yet-knowable inside of us to gestate, akin to a seed beneath the soil. When allowed and embraced, this impulse can rise and fall, come and go, in accordance with Life’s rhythms. It is an aspect of our lunar wisdom that lets us know when it’s time to hide, when it’s not yet time to be birthed, to be visible, to be knowable or even to be named. It is a practice of accessing a deeper quietude, listening and patience. It’s a practice of attuning to the cycles that hold and replenish us, and to the cosmic patterns that both unweave and weave us together into intricate and beautiful tapestries. It’s a practice of surrendering into darkness and, at times, coldness even, as we reach for and refine our sensitivity to what genuinely warms our spirit and tends our inner flame.

I wanted to share an excerpt from David Whyte’s essay on Hiding. He writes:

“Hiding is a way of staying alive. Hiding is a way of holding ourselves until we are ready to come into the light. Hiding is one of the brilliant and virtuoso practices of almost every part of the natural world: the protective quiet of an icy northern landscape, the held bud of a future summer rose, the snowbound internal pulse of the hibernating bear. Hiding is underestimated. We are hidden by life in our mother’s womb until we grow and ready ourselves for our first appearance in the lighted world; to appear too early in that world is to find ourselves with the immediate necessity of outside intensive care.”

— David White, Hiding

But, alongside this innate impulse to hide, there simultaneously lives within us a deep hunger to go on already and get out there. Get on the field. Be our most bold, our most courageous, our most expansive version of ourselves that we can be. To be an active participant in this life and make our contribution. To not shy away from challenge, but to embrace it. Not turn away from discomfort, but to rather dive. right. in.

From the perspective of this creature in us, the one that hungers for expression, expansion and bold, bright contribution — inwardness, privacy, shyness, etc can be seen as a limitation, an obstacle or something to be worked through in order to get to the real thing. And that is sometimes what is. happening. Sometimes the ways and the times we go into hiding, is to numb ourselves or resist our own soul growth and calling.

But, the danger of leaving that perspective (that hiding or shyness is a problem) to itself, without having any friction, conflict or tension with other perspectives, is that we will be left perpetuating a lot of harmful myths that could otherwise be unwoven or decomposed by the creature in us that works in the privacy of midnight hours, that thrives in the balsamic or Dark Moon phase of a cycle, that knows how to age and wither. Even though this is a Full Moon, it is a moon that falls in the final weeks of our approach to winter solstice in the Northern hemisphere, in the final weeks of a lengthening Night. Of lengthening darkness. Of taking apart, falling apart, coming apart enough so that what is nonessential can be released and what essential missing pieces that were previously discarded can be re-membered, re-valorized and threaded into our lives and relationships in fresh, creative ways.

Through the lens of cycles and spirals versus linear progress and productivity, through the lens of wild multiplicity versus we are this one thing — hiding and shyness is not innately worse or weaker or less mature than revealing oneself and being outwardly bold. As dynamic multi-faceted individuals, when one facet hides from sight, another facet is revealed. When one set of relationships fall into the background, another set of relationships are foregrounded.

When we get identified with and attached to one facet of ourselves, or one version of our visions, or one relationship/set of relationships — it can get very heavy to carry. It can be energy-consuming and get us into confounding situations when we put the weight of our worth mainly on one place of ourselves, or in one relationship, or in one area of life. But when we allow a facet of ourselves or a facet of our lives to go into hiding — maybe this is hiding from the outer world and also maybe this is hiding from our own analytic mind, gaining reprieve from its errors in perception, its mindbugs or blindspots, its tyranny — if we can soften our gaze and relax our attentiveness on getting something back into sight or back into our rational understanding, we might actually open up to the missing information, connections and experiences that we need.

With the grand Water trine we have flowing through this moment, involving Neptune and Saturn in Pisces, Jupiter in Cancer, Mercury and Black Moon Lilith in Scorpio, there is an invitation to remember what renewal, revival and richness, what radical relationships, what gold lies in the times-and-places of “hiding”.

I know it can hurt to have the moments of pause, inwardness, gestation or stillness be misinterpreted by another person as being resistant, or not-brave enough, or forthcoming-enough, or any other flavor of not-enoughness.

But belonging to the wildness of your own inner knowings and rhythms, in the face of being potentially misunderstood, is one significant invitation of this moment. Especially with Black Moon Lilith involved in that grand Water trine.

Coming home to Self, developing core strength, belonging first and foremost to your unique path as you walk it/as it meets you with each step you take, is also supported by Vesta in Capricorn forming a sextile to the North Node in Pisces and trine to the South Node in Virgo.

We need others to reflect back to us something in our blind spots, and to help us notice when our hiding is an act of deception. To help us notice when we are evading, avoiding or resisting our soul growth and more soulful participation in the world. When our hiding is a way to not look at the truth of something. Or when it’s a way to manage another’s impression of us, or to spare someone’s feelings, or to avoid a some more truthful confrontation. This still isn’t innately bad or wrong; it’s sometimes what our social lives seem to require of us — a kind of shading the truth in such a way to lubricate or titrate things for each other and ourselves.

And, also, everyone else has their biases too and their reflections of us are not perfect. We both need others to see and feel ourselves more fully and, in the end, only we can truly discern and know for ourselves if our hiding is in service of our ego … or if it’s in service of remembering our wider and wilder nature. Hiding, withdrawal, or retreat (on whatever level it is occurring — it doesn’t have to be physical) can be a surrendering into a deeper listening, into hidden rhythms, into the wild multiplicity, music and mystery within us and that enfolds us.

It can be an invitation for the Mystery to help the mind when the mind can’t help itself.

Consider optical illusions…

In this picture, you can cognitively know that squares A and B are the same color. I can tell you that this is true. And you can check it for yourself by covering up the entire picture except for those two squares, and find that they are indeed the same color.

But the thing is that, when you remove the paper, your mind is still helpless to the illusion. Your mind is powerless to change how it automatically interprets what it sees.

But in the depths of darkness, visual cues fall in their efficacy and other senses must be cultivated. As it is in winter, in rest, in the Dark Moon, in the phase where the plant goes back to seed and lies dormant in the womb of the Earth, other navigational and relational cues are necessitated, are called forth from us. We are asked to surrender into a kind of inner quiet, resourcing our wilder more non-rational ways, which can widen or alter the context in which we are perceiving a situation — and thereby shift the illusion or the unconscious inferences we make, so that we can spiral into something truly new or fresh come spring.

So, under this Full Moon in Gemini, I wonder …

What is possible when we let an aspect of ourselves, in some way, go into hiding? What then can come into visibility? What else or who else has space to make an appearance?

When hiding is allowed, what creature feels safe enough to come out of hiding?

When privacy is allowed, what trust and connections are strengthened?

When withdrawal on some level is an option, what transgressions are made possible —what lines do we give ourselves permission to cross that were not laid in the service of Life?

When you’re more familiar with your own inner darkness, what lightness might be shared?

And, while I am attempting here to re-valorize the impulse toward hiding, concealment, privacy, and rest. I want to acknowledge that sometimes, or oftentimes, we can’t hide when there’s the impulse to hide. We might not find a way to withdraw and rest when there’s the impulse to rest. We still have to get out there, respond, do the things. Wrestling with this can be just right too. Re-valorizing the impulse to hide doesn’t mean giving it full reign. It means making and holding space for it to exist, on some level, in some way — and also weaving it into an ecosystem of many other impulses, needs, hungers and creatures.

Humans are complex ecosystems.

And one sign that we’re not respecting and honoring in our own hearts the dark moons, the winters, the calls to hibernation — is that resentment or jealousy can crop up. Maybe we feel like we’re the ones always getting on the field, performing, producing, showing up … and we blow up other people’s moments and expressions of inwardness as something other than what it actually is.

On the other hand, if we’re giving our desire to hide more time, space, energy and attentiveness than our desire to shine and get in there, then we might feel jealous of others who are. We might feel like they’re always the ones getting the limelight, the credit, the attention.

This is all just an inquiry to bring curiosity and compassion to on and around this Full Moon. Because really, in the end, I think it’s about making space and giving permission for more of ourselves and for more of others to exist and to remember their goodness.

If you are interested in remembering yourself as a vast wild resilient ecosystem that is reflected and guided by the stars, my books are open. You can sign up for a standard astrology reading or experiential astrology sessions. You can also get a gift card for a loved one since … however complex this time might be … it is the season of gifting and expressing our love in this way, and you can give a friend or family member the gift of remembering who they are and that they (you, me, we) are always held by something vaster than we can ever fully see. Head over to my website to learn more.

Leaving you with a reminder to not take yourself too seriously …

with love and wonder,

Nicole

Full Moon In Gemini

New Moon in Scorpio