New Moon in Aquarius
Tomorrow is the new moon this month. As a part of my New Year’s resolution, I intend to write down every new moon up to ten “wishes” that I have for my life. I was given the suggestion to read New Moon Astrology by Jan Spiller by one of my favorite astrologers, Annie Botticelli. The book is filled with suggestions from many different aspects of life to help you decide what to wish for. I have a nice bound journal to keep track of my wishes so I can track if they come true or not. The theory is that the new moon holds special energies that will amplify your desires. Regardless, I believe any time we focus on something we are one step closer to manifesting it in our lives.
The journey from logic to belief is long and arduous. I’m a strongly left-brained, scientific type person who has spent most of my life thinking rather than feeling. I think part of my transition in this life is to tap into my intuition and feelings and balance that with logic and rationality. It is a bit like a tug of war that sometimes makes me feel either insane or in need of medication. However, as I lean into it I am starting to feel better footing.
One of my wishes is to embrace my feminine qualities. I am looking back at my 24+ year marriage that ended and thinking through all the things that could have been done differently. One of the most glaring issues that I’m discovering is the balance of masculine and feminine energy in our marriage. I’ve recently been listening to YouTube videos by John Gray, author of all the Men are From Mars books. He really lines out the roles the genders should be playing and just how very wrong we end up getting it in relationships. Listening to him, it really is no wonder I have such a strong desire to not be married anymore.
My parents set the stage wrong. Although my dad was capable of strong masculinity my mother was the typical bossy, controlling wife that didn’t delight in what my dad provided and shamed and manipulated him into not wanting to do anything for her. As a young wife, I thought that it was my job to do all the cleaning, cooking, and caretaking. I had low expectations of my husband providing anything for me because I never saw my dad do much of anything for my mom or the family outside of work. According to John Gray in a properly balanced relationship, the man always gives more than the woman. There may be defined roles, but if there were a way to quantify who was doing more in the relationship the man would take the heavy end. In the “old days” it meant the husband went to work to provide the house and all the possessions and the wife took care of those possessions in gratitude. I am NOT in favor of the old ways. I am very happy I was born into a world of gender equality. However, in a perfect world it was a beautiful way for the woman to have freedom to live each day as she saw fit making sure the house ran smoothly and the man bore the brunt of obligation. I say this with dreamy eyes because the reality for me was working full-time, taking complete care of my children, handling all the cleaning and mental load of running a family/household/finances (not to mention all the decision making) and my husband went to work for 8 hours a day, cooked dinner (mostly), and then spent the rest of his time with feet up resting. The imbalance laid the bulk of responsibility at my feet and I became more and more stressed and resentful.
According to Gray, When a woman is stressed, her estrogen drops and she takes on the more masculine role (which diminishes her sex drive). When a man isn’t giving more than a woman in the relationship his testosterone drops and he develops more feminine qualities in the relationship (which makes him lazy). Both of those hormonal responses produce depression and more stress in the genders. True happiness and fulfillment happens when the woman is producing strong estrogen (which means she feels sexy) and the man is producing strong testosterone (which gives him the energy to DO things). Sadly, when you’ve practiced the wrong habits for so long the only answer seems to be divorce and to try to get it right with the next person. Habits are so strongly engrained it is nothing short of a miracle to get a couple to stop dancing that same dance, like my parents, who never learned a new dance.
I recognize that although I didn’t know better, it was my fault for allowing myself to take on more stress than I could handle and not expect more from my husband. My personality is on the neurotic side of the spectrum, so I take on more and more responsibility to prove my worth. Or at least I did. As I transition from logic to intuition my desire to take care of myself and allow for my joy and rest to take more of a central role in my life increases. I expect less of myself and oddly my self-worth is increasing rather than decreasing. I am feeling the supreme peace of knowing that there is a “good enough” in my view instead of striving for unobtainable perfection. I can honestly say that meditation replaced the need for medication to achieve a non-neurotic life.
So, as tomorrow approaches and I set about to determine what my new moon wishes will be for this month I am focusing on learning to embrace femininity. Not out of selfishness, or even resentment toward lazy men, but knowing that by finding my own value and joy and I can actually bring value and joy to my next relationship. Yes, it will be my wish to find that lucky guy to test out my new-found knowledge, but not out of neediness. In this beautiful new moon, an absence of something, I have found wholeness.
The Mystical Type 