For years I’ve thrown myself pretty enthusiastically into election seasons, and this one was no exception. After obsessing over polls and devouring political blogs for weeks, I had planned to surrender election Tuesday to all things electional – but fate, as they say, had other plans. Instead, I spent the morning scrambling to finish up a project for a client, recreating hours of work that were lost in a tragic technical snafu. My husband valiantly pitched in to help and missed his bus for his troubles, so I drove him to work – and got caught in the first hard rain of the season and miles of snarled freeway traffic. No, election day was not starting out the way I’d planned, and by the time I got home I was feeling pretty stressed out – and with several more hours of work ahead of me.
In the end, though, the rain stopped. I finished my project early with plenty of time left to drop off my absentee ballot and obsess over the exit polls. And election night itself went mostly the way I’d hoped, with a couple of painful exceptions. So – happy ending, right? I’d finished a tricky project and the election was over; and while there were plenty of items on my docket, there was nothing that couldn’t wait for a minute or two while I caught my breath.
But days later, I still couldn’t seem to relax. As an astrologer, I needed only glance at my trusty Pocket Astrologer – specifically at the epochal Saturn/Uranus opposition on election day – to see my rattled emotional state reflected in the heavens. For a full year, more ink (and cyberink) had been spilled on this rare planetary aspect than nearly any other, with astrology blogs and journals awash with predictions of a coming revolt against the status quo. Even the mainstream news, astrologically indifferent, documented the quickening pulse of revolution and voices chanting the mantra of change. Now, within a single week, the astrology world’s biggest news story had converged, in a spine-tingling crescendo, with the most talked-about U.S. election in generations.
So I wasn’t surprised to see the sheer dizzying power of these planetary messages played out so vividly in the news, or in the election results. I was quite surprised, though, by how I felt personally this past week, as Saturn and Uranus tightened the orb of their opposition. Aspects as important as this one are often difficult for me to relate to personally; it’s as though their themes are too large to be contained within the lives of any but a few culturally important individuals. But this one – well, it was as though someone had hooked me up to some cosmic amplifier and turned the volume up to eleven.
I’m sure you’ve felt some measure of this supercharged intensity over the past couple of weeks, the buildup of energy generated by an entire country dragging its collective feet across the threshold of a new era. It’s the emotional equivalent of shuffling across a carpeted room on a dry day and then touching a doorknob. When that much energy has been building up for so long, I suppose it’s natural that some of it needs to be discharged before we can get back to business.
In any event, a couple of days after the election I was still having so much trouble concentrating on the tasks at hand (including, ironically, writing an article about the Full Moon in calming, practical Taurus) that I finally gave up and pushed myself away from the computer. Acting purely on instinct, I chose to discharge some static buildup with what were, in hindsight, some characteristically Taurean rituals.
First, I took to the sofa for an afternoon nap. I’m not one for napping, as a rule, so this siesta was all the more satisfying for being so rare. I woke up refreshed, but not yet eager to face the computer. So I puttered around outside, watering plants, doing a little weeding, a little deadheading, a little sweeping. I exchanged friendly words with a neighbor, and recovered the trashcans from the curbside after the weekly collection. Ordinary things. But after an hour or so in the fresh air, performing these humble tasks, I came inside for a cup of tea, and I caught myself singing a contented little tune while I waited for the kettle to boil.
I don’t suppose we can live through a revolution and expect to remain flawlessly calm, cool, and collected. But the coming Full Moon in Taurus, like a sensible, no-drama friend, reminds us even in the midst of upheaval we can be restored to calm and reason through reassuring tasks and familiar rituals; by drinking cups of tea, walking the dog, and tending the plants. So during this quiet Full Moon intermission in the midst of the revolution, take time to calm yourself with the happy monotony of unexceptional daily routines. Sometimes when the winds of change are storming around you, the best way to stay grounded is to focus on the prayerful predictability of breathing in and out.
© 2008 April Elliott Kent
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