Nox Amicus

As Tuesday moved into Wednesday this week, at precisely midnight, the moon became New Again. It’s the first New Moon of 2021 and a time for new possibilities – and in this case, time to dig deeper into the work of these posts.

During this past cycle my focus was on the business of the end of the year – primarily Releasing that which did not serve me, and in doing so, welcoming either something new or the space to allow better things to grow.

One of the things I’ve wanted to Release from last year was fear and anxiety. The last few months of the year saw it consume me – all of it based on historical triggers that can’t be erased, just re-framed. I focused a lot on things I had done that I wish I could undo, and on wrongs that were done to me. All the scars that make up who we are. My goal wasn’t to get rid of them – they are woven into my fabric – but I wanted to blend and soften them a bit.

Anxiety isn’t always bad. When I was young, starting at about five years old, I rebelled against the Catholic Church – there was SO much incongruity and hypocrisy (some of you know the story of when, at a precocious age, I asked a priest why he yelled so much during a homily). Fast forward a few years and there was a priest in my grade school parish who was the first spiritual leader that made sense. There’s a bit in the Catholic Mass just after the Lord’s Prayer known as the embolism. The line, spoken by the officiant, was “Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”  Father Sullivan never said it that way though – he said “…from all undue anxiety…”. Suddenly faith could be malleable, even if it wasn’t taught that way. The addition of a single Word made me feel less edgy and more hopeful. Subconsciously, this was imprinted – “the words you use matter”.

A few years later my dad began working from home. He was a regional sales manager and traveled a lot – so why rent an office only he ever went to? I got to watch him at his IBM Selectric typewriter – typing letter after letter. Phones weren’t really his thing either – it was all about writing. I saw him type thoughts, crafting paragraphs on the fly. That stuck too. Words matter.

The lessons continued – public speaking in high school, radio in college, newspaper writing after that, the radio/television/film degree, the communications degree – words matter; what we say, and how we say them – right down to the nuance of choice. Sure – there have been times when I’ve spoken before I’ve thought and I really wished I could take something back – but I try to learn from those times.

A few weeks ago I started to explore TikTok. I had dismissed it – I just didn’t have time for the kinds of content I’d seen – but it’s tough to disregard a billion people. I created an account and let the algorithm guide me. I began to find “my people” – nerdy, geeky, shy, anxious, talented, confident – all finding new and different ways to express themselves. I liked, I followed, I chatted – I haven’t posted yet, but I already have 28 followers who are waiting.

The algorithm led me to someone who was singing an original song about their experience with bullying. Their performance was raw and powerful – if there was a genre for “punk-folk ukulele”, this was it. But there was a line at the end of the verse that floored me: “They don’t even have to hurt me to keep me in my place”. My years of fear and anxiety coalesced by someone else’s words. So I commented – like you do. My comment was basically “This powerful truth is resonant… thank you for putting words to my feelings too.” As of this writing 2100 people have ‘liked’ my comment. This person and their song touched tens of thousands of souls, and my gratitude was echoed by two thousand. Their words made a difference – and apparently, mine did too.

So the focus this month is Words. Which Words are used, when they are used, how they are used, who hears them, and what was their audience and intent? Sometimes the message is explicit, sometimes implicit, but every message eventually finds its audience.

No song this time – neither The Monkees nor Missing Persons fit this theme. But I will sign off with a quote from Rumi…

“Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” -Rumi

Well – this is different, right?

This past Tuesday morning at 5:28am the moon was new again, so I knew it was time to write another of these – but then I thought ‘nothing is normal’, and is it just going to be irritating to publish this now? Then I decided to not take that decision away from anyone – I wanted to see what words came out and if someone else needs a different kind of distraction they can stop reading now.

The theme for the past lunar cycle was one of Resonance, and when I think about it I can see examples of resonant effect in many places. The way that the harmonics of this virus and response have hit a crescendo and reverberated through every area of our lives is indeed resonant – but certainly not in the way I would have imagined. There’s anxiety, fear, loneliness, and uncertainty. I went through my challenges and know there will be more to come before this is over. This is a long game. It’s not unlike the ADSR envelope in music, where ASDR stands for Attack, Decay, Sustain, and Release. We’re still in the Attack stage – but hopefully soon we’ll be on the other side and be able to see “the curve” Decay – before Sustaining for a short period and finally Releasing. Then, hopefully, there will be quiet from the anxiety, and brighter days.

So what about this cycle? I thought about our collective isolation and about our solitude; I thought about the warmth of the sun and how the proper name for our sun is Sol. So what about Solace?

Exclusive of our current planetary emergency – Solace would, and has, come from the resolution of Resonance, so Solace fits as a step on my path. There are numerous references online to “solace in solitude”, and while I would normally gravitate toward that, I like my solitude more when it’s my own idea and desire. I’m an admitted agoraphobe, so staying home is my preferred state – but even I am missing being out with other humans these days.

So how do we find solace in these times? For me, it’s been a result of the past months of Curation – of keeping only those things in my life which sustain me, and by focusing on where my life is most Resonant. I’m trying to stay in touch with a myriad of people through a variety of methods, working on oft-delayed creative projects, and keeping as close to a normal schedule as I can. For me, there is Solace in consistency – so where some of that has been robbed, I reinforce it in other places.

For those of us who may be blessed enough to not have this virus hit too close to home yet, there is an opportunity to sit with ourselves – to listen to the intuitions that drive us and see where we might have opportunity for change. I’m not saying this is the Universe saying “go to your room and think about what you’ve done” – but deep self-reflection doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

May you find Solace in these times in whatever way serves your soul best!!

Last night at 11:12pm the moon was new, and 46 minutes later Mercury went direct from retrograde. The whole Mercury Retrograde thing resonates with some people – the idea of communications being wonky and holding off on bigger choices until it goes direct again. I wasn’t really paying attention to it this time around, but as I sit to write this month’s intention, it seems relevant.

The last lunar cycle was about “Resolve”. For me, this was a concerted effort to be less obliged to assumed responsibility, and lacking an expressed “need” from elsewhere, giving credence and validity to my “wants”. I feel like I did this in spirit even when I didn’t have an opportunity to do it in practice. There were very few times I did or said something because I felt I was “supposed to” and many times when I expressed what was in my heart even though that might not have been what the audience wanted to hear.

Still – I’ve felt mired in something since I got back from Australia. The best word is ennui – just a listlessness and dissatisfaction. Some of that is due to the lingering issues with my knee, some of it is a result of clouds on the professional landscape, and some of it is just wondering where the next hill is.

When I was standing on the cliffs near Watson’s Bay, I had an opportunity to think about who I am – quiet, alone, and uninfluenced I felt like I was the one in the village who went out on his own and looked over the hill to see what there was to be seen. I wasn’t harvesting resources or building new villages – I was the one that said: “hey, that looks cool”.

I went for a quiet drive tonight and thought about this cycle’s intention – and decided on “Elevation”. I’m very much stuck in the weeds, feeling like I’m slicing through a savannah with a dull machete. There are hills to be found and scaled, and above the clouds there is clear sky. For those who are familiar with the Qabalistic Tree of Life – I need to focus less on Malkuth and set my sights back on Yesod.

Or as Michael Nesmith wrote in 1971 – “I lost the light, now I’m moving through the night, running from the Grand Ennui.”

Thanks, Nez.

This past Tuesday afternoon the lunar cycle was new again, so it’s time for another of these posts. I’d like to thank everyone who tunes in every month for these. They’re just mileposts on my journey, but posting them here helps me feel accountable – so thank you for your witness.

Last month was about clarity, the need for it and the search for it. The trip to Australia was exactly what no doctor ordered, but exactly what I needed in the way it unfolded. It was physical endurance, it was the exploration of other cultures, it was immersion in the creative arts, and it was an exercise in self-reliance and self-expression.

So what’s this month about? The word is “resolve”. It’s a complicated word, whether used as a noun or a verb. In many ways, the journey through clarity helped me resolve some lingering questions and self-doubts, and that kind of resolution can only carry-over and make us stronger – providing us with resolve.

That’s where I find myself today. I have had a tendency my whole life to make compromises I didn’t really need to make. My own issues from childhood led me to be the one who had to make sure everyone else was okay. No one asked me to be that, but it fell to me. My sister used to call me Switzerland because I was always the one not taking sides and hosting the peace talks. In doing that, my resources were always expended outside of myself.

I’m going to start to back away from that. It’s not my job to make sure “everyone” and “everything” is okay. I resign. I will fight injustice, I will support my friends and family as best I can, and I will battle for what I am passionate about – but I’m now in the business of rationing my energies. I can’t be all things to all people anymore.

That’s going to mean changes. It’s also going to be rocky as I make that adjustment because I know I am going to alienate people. But 53 years is long enough to worry about making someone upset.

What does it look like? A lot more time of me doing things that feed my soul and less time fulfilling self-imposed obligations that don’t make my life a better place. Personally, spiritually, musically, professionally – everything needs to be examined for its cost versus its benefit.

There are still going to be compromises, and there are still going to be some times when I will do things because someone else’s need outweighs my own. But the important thing now is that I will also guarantee myself a seat at this table.

Micky sang a song during sound-check that spoke to this shift. It was “As We Go Along” by Carole King & Toni Stern, and the chorus begins:

Open your eyes, get up off your chair
There’s so much to do in the sunlight

Let the sun shine!!

On Monday morning we had another New Moon. This was a little hard to believe because I felt like we’d just had one – but such is the nature of time right now.

For May I had chosen Integrity, because I seemed to be surrounded by such a lack of it that I wanted to make sure I was living my own life with as much honesty, mindfulness, and conviction as I could. It was tough – there were some choices and compromises, but the sun kept rising.

But things are still muddled. There are turbulent waters all around – spiritual questions, professional questions. I need space to think, but I haven’t really been able to give myself the healthy time to do that.

So this cycle I’m choosing Clarity. I know it’s the thing I need right now to navigate these seas. During a conversation with Laura around my plans, or lack thereof, for the Australia trip – it dawned on me that I’m actually on a kind of pilgrimage. Prompted by the chance to see musical and entertainment heroes, but I also get the chance to breathe. I am flying half-way around the world. Everyone I know will be asleep when I’m awake and awake when I’m asleep. I will be alone and have the chance to really listen to my own thoughts. This made me think of the Australian term “Walkabout”, defined as “a journey on foot undertaken by an Australian Aboriginal in order to live in the traditional manner.” The tradition I’m looking for is my own. What makes Sean tick? What makes Sean happy? Who is Sean when there’s no one to be anything or anyone else for?

I am blessed beyond words for this opportunity, and I really think it couldn’t have come at a better time. So for this next lunar cycle it’s about Clarity – and in keeping with the recent trends of adding a soundtrack to these posts – I don’t think anything is more fitting than this.

It’s been a rough week. It’s been six days since the new moon and this is the first day I’ve felt like I was able to write an unbiased New Moon post. Funny thing is, the theme that I’d intended on last Saturday followed me through the week and stays true today.

For the April lunar cycle I chose Patience, and in that post I said: “I’m going to just be patiently watching for the next few weeks, void of expectation, but mindful of the changes – and any calls to action those changes may prompt.” Turns out one of the changes was a wonderful surprise gig with the band. But this theme of patiently watching while void of expectation served me well during the troubles this week as well. I was able to find the space between stimulus and response, not react too soon or over-react, and seek advice from a select few places.

All of this brings me to this cycle’s theme – Integrity. For my purposes this month, I’m using the definition “the condition of being unified, unimpaired, or sound in construction”. Last week I’d wanted to choose Integrity because it symbolized the Beltane joining of masculine & feminine, and the unification that the ability to draw equally from both of those perspectives can offer. This week it is still true because the unification of emotional drive and logical restraint served me very well.

There are always competing forces inside us – light/dark, feeling/thinking, right/wrong – but reality is always somewhere in the middle. Reality is rooted in the oneness, the balance, the perspective.

So for the next lunar cycle I want to continue to try to see the whole board. Still staying true to my own convictions, but accepting the fact that “E pluribus unum” (“Out of many, one”) applies to all things, great and small.

There was a cautious optimism coming out of my last New Moon post. I’d chosen “renewal” because of how I was feeling and processing the trip to Hawaii. There was so much of that which called me back to myself – and so much of the intervening years that called for processing and forgiveness. In retrospect we are rarely exactly who we would have wanted to be in a moment – but that’s what growth is for.

I’d had some ideas for this month – thoughts that planned to build on what had come before, deepening the sense of renewal and the promise of rebirth that spring holds. But for right now there is other work that needs my attention, so in line with that, I’m going to pursue Patience for this lunar cycle.

In the age of instant gratification and twenty-four hour news, I think we lose track of the value of waiting. We’re so busy saying ‘I want to do this now, know this now, be there now, change this now’ – that we forget that sometimes the process is the thing, not what the process leads to. Sometimes the final product is irrelevant, it’s the waiting and crafting and tempering that is the real work, and sets us up for so many more successes than the one thing we thought we were working toward.

I have the rarest of occurrences this month – I have three weekends with no commitments. I think there’s a very good chance I’m going to keep things that way. In the quiet and the waiting will come either questions or answers.

There’s a principle in physics called the Observer Effect, which holds that the act of simply observing a phenomenon changes both that which is being observed as well as the observer. I’m going to just be patiently watching for the next few weeks, void of expectation, but mindful of the changes – and any calls to action those changes may prompt.

Ten days ago we had another New Moon – but it happened on the day we were flying from Oahu to Kauai; the middle of the vacation. Also – I had no idea what March’s theme would be. Collaboration had gotten us there – but what would being there bring?

As I look back on the trip though – and at moments, challenges, and adventures – I think the theme right now is Renewal; which seems fitting for this time of year. I realized that this was the first time since 1978 (I think) that I was in Hawaii with no other family than my brother, sister-in-law, and their family. There were shadows here and there of what Sean was like before high school… and a lot of “stuff” that’s gotten in my way in the past 40 years came into perspective.

A lot of it is just too “inside baseball” to post publicly – but sitting at dinner I got a clear sense of “my” family. Through the trip, there were snippets of “you can’t go home again”, but then there were moments that suggested that we’re never really gone. Mahalo nui loa to Bob, Carol, Joshua, and JJ for their ho’okipa and opening my eyes to ohana again.

So as I move through this month, Ostara, and the equinox – I want to try to leave my shadows alone for a while and keep my focus on the light of the sun. It feels like it’s time to bloom again.

I’m a few days late on this one, the new moon was actually Monday afternoon at 4:04pm. It’s funny too – last week while I was away I was convinced I knew what this cycle was going to be. But as it happens so many times, the universe had other ideas.

Last month the topic was Respect. Respecting one another, our choices, our paths, and what we desire and need from each other. This give-and-take of accepting and testing boundaries has a musical component. When you’re playing with other musicians you develop a sense of where someone will want to go, and you learn how to follow them. This is also reciprocated – they sense where you are, where the energy is taking your spirit, and they either join you in flight or keep track of the ground and let you soar. I’ve been finding great joy in this symbiotic nature of music lately.

So for this cycle, rather than go where I thought to go, I’m making a choice to go where I feel to go – and that means this cycle is about Collaboration. For someone who treasures quiet time alone, I’ve come to relish some of the times I get to collaborate with people. Sure, there’s the band and musical endeavors, but what struck me about this last trip to Denver was the different souls I get to collaborate with at work. I was discussing a possible workshop with one friend/co-worker and we were strategizing who would attend if only one of us could, and I said what was in my heart – “we are a two-headed monster” – we were stronger in that setting together. I also got to have lunch with a community of co-worker/friends – four of us talking a bit of work, but then trading favorite books we were reading. This blending of personal and professional – of spirits and tasks – makes for stronger connections and better collaborations. To be free to be joyful, or not – invites others to do the same and builds a space everyone can share equally.

Regardless of the size or context of our communities, where there is success, there is collaboration – and in this cycle, I want to do my best to recognize it and celebrate it – whether I am involved or am just blessed to bear witness to it.

Happy New Year – and welcome to the first new moon of 2019. I started this process two years ago this month; and I like the fact that I can go back and see where I was, what I was facing, and examine how I chose to deal with it. Thanks to those of you who choose to come along for my introspective journey every month!

Last month was about Honor. Honoring commitments, honoring memories, honoring sacrifice, and honoring talents. When I was thinking about what this cycle might hold, it felt like Honor needed some sort of companion. As if to say that Honor is the theory – but I needed to understand the practice. So this cycle will focus on Respect.

A week or so ago, a somewhat obvious lesson presented itself. The details aren’t relevant – but the learning was that we all have different paths, and as similar or compatible as they might seem to be at times, no two paths are identical – and that’s what makes us all unique individuals. It’s like two musicians might play the same instrument in the same song – but they will sound totally different because of who they are and how they play. We don’t all play the same way, and it’s unfair to expect that someone might.

But that expectation is also unfair to ourselves. How much time and energy have we spent waiting, hoping, encouraging – someone to see the benefit of the path we laid out before them? We know it’s right – why can’t they see it? Because they are not us. They do not have our experiences, our history, or our perspective. This doesn’t make them wrong, it just makes them not us.

So this cycle I’ll continue the work of being more respectful of the paths other people choose to walk, particularly when it comes to my interactions with them. I will also respect my self, my path, and my energy by not investing more than is healthy. My history has caused me to stay present ‘just in case’ – but this has historically carried a very high price. It’s time to respect my resources and conserve them for where they are actually needed or can bring the best result.