A heavy heart

Libra Full Moon Deep Dive

“It is a shit storm out here. You have no idea the kind of crap people are pulling, and everyone’s walking around like they’re in a goddamn Enya video.” - Mark Baum

In the last several weeks, I have received phone call after phone call from friends and clients that are feeling themselves weighed down by the stress and pressure of the present moment.

And it’s not just anecdotes.

The data is clear: there is a global mental health crisis, with the World Health Organization going so far as to assert that the most pressing health issue is, in their words, a “loneliness epidemic.” Deaths of despair—like drug overdoses and suicides— are surging in the modern, western world despite access to resources and care and relative abundance.

Hope for the future seems to be at an all-time low, while uncertainty and unnamable, faceless dread seem to be at an all-time high. The psychics and energy workers I know are feeling this burden in their bodies, finding themselves feeling stressed, anxious and physically tense, even if they don’t exactly know why.

It’s a heavy time.

And it doesn’t look like it’s getting lighter anytime soon.

Layoffs. Stock market volatility. Interpersonal hostility. Bank failures. Stress at work. Relationship challenges. Legal or tax situations. Unexpected medical costs. The house that was just purchased. The small business being built. The child that was just brought into this world.

When taken in its totality, it can be overwhelming. And it’s definitely having an unprecedented energetic and spiritual impact.

So, how do we even begin to tackle this situation?

To start, I think we need to lighten our load. Take a little air out of the tires. Release our white-knuckle grip. Get some of the emotional and energetic clutter out of the way so we can see the full picture. And stop expecting things to be “like they used to be.”

After all: these are not the “before times”. And we’re not going to grind our way out the old way.

Life really is more complicated now, and basic tasks— like trouble-shooting a tech problem or finding a lost package— are infinitely more time-consuming and stressful than they were just a few short years ago.

In the last three years, most of us have used all of our back-up reserves of creative problem-solving and emotional resilience just to get through each day. We’ve silently swallowed a lot of anger, fear and sadness. We are all exhausted from having to outsmart and rapid-solution and pivot in response to an endlessly shifting landscape marked by unexpected and unprecedented events, like riots or global pandemics.

But what’s coming next doesn’t care that we’re tired.

And there is no denying that a socio-economic tsunami is at the horizon line. The moment of impact is coming for all of us, whether it’s today or next week or a month or two from now. Even if the financial and corporate real estate markets don’t collapse and our shorelines don’t disappear under the rising tides of climate change, AI and machine learning and next gen automation are inevitably going to radically shift our shared social fabric, generating substantial growing pains as we evolve together.

[If you want more details on this from an astrological and shamanic perspective— tracking Pluto’s transit from Capricorn to Aquarius— check out our previous post HERE. The executive summary? We are not in control.]

This Libra Full Moon Shamanic Deep Dive is not about being negative. It’s not about giving up. It’s not about fixating on the problems or being neurotic or sounding the sirens of doom.

But this post is going to be honest, because we need to get f*cking honest if we’re going to unburden ourselves and release the heavy detritus that has been building up in our systems: the trauma responses, the adrenal fatigue, the physical exhaustion, the coping mechanisms, the survival skills, the muscle memories and the resentment and fear and moments of abject despair that are weighing us down as individuals… and as a collective.

In keeping with this theme, I’m going to get really real with you in this post. I’m going to commit the ultimate sin for a small business owner, shaman and spiritual coach: I’m going to admit to being flawed and kind of f*cked up. I’m going to admit to feeling tired and frustrated and heavy. To having trauma responses. To not knowing everything or having a solution for everything all of the time.

I’m going to admit to being human.

And I’m not going to signal my virtue with the nauseating, performative “vulnerability” I see all over the place on social media. I’m not going to try to control the narrative or the spin or influence the impact or outcome.

I’m just going to tell the truth.

And in our social media-dominated, cancel culture world, this is a genuinely terrifying prospect: to strip it all down and let it all hang out, even if it’s unflattering or alienating or counter to my “business interests”.

To this end: if you are looking some affirmative bullsh*t or a mantra to get you through tough times or a manifestation vision-boarding exercise for the Full Moon or a shaman “ism” that ties everything together…well, this post just isn’t for you.

This is the real, deep work of shamanism, and to do it properly I have to put it all on the line. No edit. No spin. No sell.

Why? Well, because my heart is heavy.

And, based on my recent conversations, I think many of your hearts are heavy, too.

So let’s unburden ourselves. Let’s get this off of our chests. Let’s dig into this Libra Full Moon, the Ancient Egyptian Goddess Ma’at and her scales, what’s weighing us down, what we might be hoarding, and how to embody a lighter, less complex way of being in the world, if only to breathe for a few minutes.

In this Libra Full Moon Deep Dive, we explore the unexpected wisdom of Shia LaBeouf and what happens when we run out of wiggle room. And we take a look at Pluto’s first swipe through our lives with its transit from Capricorn to Aquarius, removing the extraneous and artificial with brutal efficiency.

The bottom line? Our invisible burdens have become too heavy, and we just can’t take everything with us for the rest of this journey.

These are not the “before times”, but they are the “now times”.

And we need to adjust accordingly.

Libra, Lady Justice and Ma’at

This month’s Full Moon- coming on April 6th- is in the sign of Libra, which is often depicted with the symbol of the scales. The scales not only represent balance but also justice, and courthouses all over this country are punctuated with statues of Lady Justice, blindfolded and holding her scales.

The overall vibe of Libra is one of setting things right and putting things back into balance. Creating harmony. Being fair. And Lady Justice is a symbolic reminder that the system is blind to the superficial and the transient: fame, money or power have no bearing on her adjudications.

But there is an older- and more intense- origin of the symbolism of the scales, one that is pressingly relevant to what we’re currently experiencing.