December 8, 2019

Cosmic Grace for Your Inner Darkness

We are two weeks away from the Solstice and we are at mid-Advent. In the Inner Year, this is a very important moment offering very important choices for our inner development. How quickly our spiritual energy evolves from early-Advent to mid-Advent to late-Advent...take notice of your Inner Year! 

I was just listening to the second lesson in the Inner Advent: Your Year of Darkness (following my own advice!). In both Inner Advent courses, I guide the participants to a review of the outer contexts of the year (World Events, Nature, Work, Health, Relationships, Culture, Finances, Home) which is a very powerful review and revelation which we should do seasonally. In the audio I was listening to, I mention that we also can become aware of the Cosmic contexts of the constellations and planets. (How did Mercury or Mars shape your year?)  This year Inner Advent has a strong lunar context.

This morning I went to check my inbox and found the weekly email from Pam Younghans, a tropical astrologer with a gentle wisdom. Normally, they arrive late Sunday afternoon, but today her insights arrived before 10AM and before I was planning to write this email. 

Pam’s thoughts on the Full Moon were an inspiration to urge you to consider taking up the process of Inner Advent: Your Year of Darkness.

A FULL MOON perfects midweek, occurring at 9:12 p.m. PST on Wednesday (5:12 a.m. GMT on Thursday). The lunation occurs when the Moon is at 19°51′ Gemini, and the Sun is at the same degree of Sagittarius.

A part of the importance of this Full Moon is that it precedes the solar eclipse that occurs on December 25/26. This means there is an even stronger emphasis on the usual advice to do a cleansing/release process during the last half of the lunar cycle. Over the next two weeks, we will want to focus on literally and figuratively clearing our closets of debris.

http://www.northpointastrology.com/northpoint-journal.html

Now is the time to clear your inner closet of the clutter around your shadows, sorrows and sufferings that keep you from understanding the meaning, purpose and necessity of these dark aspects.  

In the course, I speak about Inner Advent as the season of the Soul's Alchemy. We transmute what was dark about the year into an experience of amazing moral development. Because the dark contents of shadows, sorrows and sufferings are experienced with the devotion and awareness of investigation and appreciation, because we experience them not as dramatic stories, but as meta stories, we discover that through the darkness we illuminate our souls. We experience self-forgiveness for our shadows, self-restoration for our sorrows, and self-empowerment for our sufferings.  This takes courage, love and wisdom. 

As a result of this Inner Advent devotion, as you will walk through the coming year you will shine into the world many blessings.  Like me, you will still accumulate dark contents, but how you live with them will be so different. 

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

- Wendell Berry

This Full Moon and the other cosmic aspects of mid-Advent seem to be offering the work of Inner Advent a special grace this year. Spread your dark wings!

If you haven't yet signed up, learn more about Inner Advent: Your Year of Darkness and register here.

My next email, coming in a couple of days, will introduce this year's theme for the Inner Christmas Messages for your Holy Nights.