Welcome, new moon

The oaks on Eighth Street are just about to bury the street in leaves.

Yesterday's eclipse was powerful. Did you feel it? I bet you did even if it didn't register consciously. I was inspired to launch into a cleaning frenzy, an ideal activity at any dark moon, but especially during a solar eclipse. Out with the old to make room for the new is a big part of what yesterday's eclipse was all about.

I love to clean house anyway, hence yesterday, in order to dance in shamanic alignment with the Scorpionic eclipse energy, I found it necessary to go deeper than the usual chateau maintenance, setting my sites on areas I usually ignore. I pulled everything out from under my bed, sorted through the shoes I love - correction: loved - even though they always hurt my feet, a bunch of books that had no bookshelf to call their own (one of which I've been searching for), and several old, funky, ugly blankets I was keeping for ... the apocalypse? You tell me why I've been saving them, I can't explain it.

After the bout of cleaning I got out and about. Along the way, I bought replacements for lots of old, no longer functional household odds and ends, such as the crusty old shower curtain liner. You can only wash those things so many times before they become tattered and sad as well as no longer waterproof. The shower curtain liner? Gone. Also gone, the coffee grinder I bought as I prepared to leave my marriage almost twenty years ago. I remember telling my therapist about the new grinder which was, for some reason, emblematic of the dramatic step I was about to take. I told her, "I don't know what my new life will look like, but one thing I know for sure: there will be coffee." Indeed there has been.

The old grinder was way past its expiration date, but still barely lumbering along. The new one is great! I had no idea coffee could be so quickly and effectively ground. All hail the passing of the old!

Funny how getting rid of the old grinder felt momentous. Ah, how much I adore the cheap thrills of life!

By dancing in alignment with the eclipse, I honor the cyclic nature of our universe. The eclipse will resonate, but it's over now. All is well, onwards and upwards. Shalom.