The New Moon is in Gemini today, just now conjoining Mars in Gemini.
A story about Mars in Gemini.
This morning as I was sitting down to write a horoscope about Mars in Gemini the lawn guys came to mow our lawn and I was immediately overwhelmed by the buzzing of blades and weed whippers all around me. I went downstairs to give the guys payment so I could sit down and focus on my writing but when I got downstairs the glass in our front door was shattered. I stood there for a minute with my mouth open in shock and then went outside and asked the guys if they had seen anything happen, to which they said “no, not a thing.” True or not true, my guess was that a rock kicked up from the mower and hit the glass.
Was it a lie or a deception? The crew was Spanish speaking so communication was difficult and it was agitating me because I also didn’t want the guys to think I was accusing them of anything…typical for the white guy to blame the latino guys mowing his lawn for breaking his glass door, right? I’m not that guy!
They stood there with me in front of the door and the million pieces of glass, and we all just looked at it. “I don’t know,” the crew chief said. “Yeah,” I said. “Me either.”
Then they left, and I started sweeping it up. A million little hairs were blowing in my face in the humid breeze and so I put my hair up. A million little everythings. A million little ants on the pavement. A million pieces of glass. A million hairs. A million things to do and now an hour of my time is GONE.
But then all of a sudden, I realized, “Oh right. Moon conjoining Mars in Gemini this morning…a million pieces of fragmented, sharp glass in the entryway to my home. Right at the threshold. The place where the hard concrete transitions to the carpet, and voila! .. you’re home! Covered in sharp bits, too many to count.
Then, I heard a familiar voice in my head, “You might as well enjoy picking up these pieces of glass. You might as well take this moment to practice mindfulness.”
So I Thich Nhat Hanh’d that shit and spent an hour cleaning the glass. First I doubled a grocery bag and then filled it with a garbage bag liner. Then I swept up all the big piles (there were no big pieces, just big piles of thousands of small pieces), and carefully dumped them into my bag. I almost thought about putting on shoes but then I realized that my sandals would keep me in the moment…they would keep me focused because I wouldn’t want to get glass in them.
My toes and feet were not harmed once.
Then I picked up micro frags by my fingertips, out of all the cracks I could find. Then swept more and more little piles, until my back was covered in sweat, my legs were sore from all the up and down, but my mind was completely empty…as clear as the spring sky.
Then I took the frame and carried it off carefully into the basement. Then I vacuumed. Then I sat down with a client in one of the clearest states of mind I can recall having in recent memory.
Every morning I work out and I have my routines, so it’s not like my body was lacking exercise. And every day I write and read and keep quiet space as a priority. So it’s not like I’m someone who is “all over the place,” and needed some giant lesson in mindfulness. Why did this happen?
I didn’t ask the question, out of respect for the glass, until after it was done, and then I got an answer, “So you could write about Mars in Gemini today.”
And then a stream of Mars in Gemini insights:
* The power of dispersion to ironically gather and silence and focus
* The danger of razor sharp clarity
* The power of words and ideas to either hold things together or to harm and inhibit others
* Taming the tongue
* The power of ideas to keep people from feeling safe
* The power of ideas to welcome people home again
* The power of communication to accuse or forgive
* Each word counts, each word can kill
* The mind clarifies but it is also fragile
* Mindfulness is the process of gathering the sharp little owies constantly streaming in our heads…carefully collecting them so they don’t harm us or the ones we love
* Mindfulness isn’t just about taking your time and going more slowly, its about razor sharp, million pieced clarity and attention…so fast and clear that you have to go slow or you’ll hurt yourself
* Mindfulness is the fruit of discovering just how “real” and “sharp” thoughts are..how multifaceted, how fluid, and yet how edged…
These and too many more insights to name…like little bits of glass, kept coming and coming…and then a question put to me, “So why did the glass break?”
It was a rhetorical question. There’s too many answers to count. smile emoticon
prayer: Help us to hear, feel, and see, the sharpness of our thoughts, words, and ideas…so that we might handle each one, each one and mindfully
A story about Mars in Gemini.
This morning as I was sitting down to write a horoscope about Mars in Gemini the lawn guys came to mow our lawn and I was immediately overwhelmed by the buzzing of blades and weed whippers all around me. I went downstairs to give the guys payment so I could sit down and focus on my writing but when I got downstairs the glass in our front door was shattered. I stood there for a minute with my mouth open in shock and then went outside and asked the guys if they had seen anything happen, to which they said “no, not a thing.” True or not true, my guess was that a rock kicked up from the mower and hit the glass.
Was it a lie or a deception? The crew was Spanish speaking so communication was difficult and it was agitating me because I also didn’t want the guys to think I was accusing them of anything…typical for the white guy to blame the latino guys mowing his lawn for breaking his glass door, right? I’m not that guy!
They stood there with me in front of the door and the million pieces of glass, and we all just looked at it. “I don’t know,” the crew chief said. “Yeah,” I said. “Me either.”
Then they left, and I started sweeping it up. A million little hairs were blowing in my face in the humid breeze and so I put my hair up. A million little everythings. A million little ants on the pavement. A million pieces of glass. A million hairs. A million things to do and now an hour of my time is GONE.
But then all of a sudden, I realized, “Oh right. Moon conjoining Mars in Gemini this morning…a million pieces of fragmented, sharp glass in the entryway to my home. Right at the threshold. The place where the hard concrete transitions to the carpet, and voila! .. you’re home! Covered in sharp bits, too many to count.
Then, I heard a familiar voice in my head, “You might as well enjoy picking up these pieces of glass. You might as well take this moment to practice mindfulness.”
So I Thich Nhat Hanh’d that shit and spent an hour cleaning the glass. First I doubled a grocery bag and then filled it with a garbage bag liner. Then I swept up all the big piles (there were no big pieces, just big piles of thousands of small pieces), and carefully dumped them into my bag. I almost thought about putting on shoes but then I realized that my sandals would keep me in the moment…they would keep me focused because I wouldn’t want to get glass in them.
My toes and feet were not harmed once.
Then I picked up micro frags by my fingertips, out of all the cracks I could find. Then swept more and more little piles, until my back was covered in sweat, my legs were sore from all the up and down, but my mind was completely empty…as clear as the spring sky.
Then I took the frame and carried it off carefully into the basement. Then I vacuumed. Then I sat down with a client in one of the clearest states of mind I can recall having in recent memory.
Every morning I work out and I have my routines, so it’s not like my body was lacking exercise. And every day I write and read and keep quiet space as a priority. So it’s not like I’m someone who is “all over the place,” and needed some giant lesson in mindfulness. Why did this happen?
I didn’t ask the question, out of respect for the glass, until after it was done, and then I got an answer, “So you could write about Mars in Gemini today.”
And then a stream of Mars in Gemini insights:
* The power of dispersion to ironically gather and silence and focus
* The danger of razor sharp clarity
* The power of words and ideas to either hold things together or to harm and inhibit others
* Taming the tongue
* The power of ideas to keep people from feeling safe
* The power of ideas to welcome people home again
* The power of communication to accuse or forgive
* Each word counts, each word can kill
* The mind clarifies but it is also fragile
* Mindfulness is the process of gathering the sharp little owies constantly streaming in our heads…carefully collecting them so they don’t harm us or the ones we love
* Mindfulness isn’t just about taking your time and going more slowly, its about razor sharp, million pieced clarity and attention…so fast and clear that you have to go slow or you’ll hurt yourself
* Mindfulness is the fruit of discovering just how “real” and “sharp” thoughts are..how multifaceted, how fluid, and yet how edged…
These and too many more insights to name…like little bits of glass, kept coming and coming…and then a question put to me, “So why did the glass break?”
It was a rhetorical question. There’s too many answers to count. smile emoticon
prayer: Help us to hear, feel, and see, the sharpness of our thoughts, words, and ideas…so that we might handle each one, each one and mindfully
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