Top secret

Belated happy Beltane¹ wishes in advance of the coming week’s Scorpio Full Moon. Astrological tradition generally casts the Scorpio moon as a time of intrigue, covert operations and clandestine encounters—ultimately linked to the great cycles of death and rebirth. No wonder it sometimes gets unfairly depicted as the lunar year’s least favourable full moon.

On the collective level the hidden transformations at work may refer to geopolitical manoeuvring and secret negotiations. And, as luck would have it at the time of writing, the cardinals of the Catholic Church are behind locked doors in secret conclave as they vote to appoint a new Pope. (Spoiler alert! I think it fairly safe to announce that the new incumbent was always going to be a bloke.)

In our personal lives, Scorpio clandestine encounters are often portrayed as potentially kinkier than those in the Vatican, so this weekend might be a good window in which to suggest a spot of erotic exploration with a good friend or two. Whatever floats your boat.

More regularly, if handled carefully, Scorpio’s secretive dark side lends itself to greater emotional sensitivity, attentiveness, and honest communication with oneself. So in truth, this might not be the weekend to hurriedly frequent the sordid shadows of transient pleasure but instead privately shine an unflustered, revealing spotlight on the totally naked self. There’s never a bad time to engage in conscious introspection, but this weekend might represent a keen opportunity to explore the hidden inner depths that usually conceal keys to our future well-being and growth.

Lest we forget, during this month five years ago, most human activity was constrained by lockdown. In re-examining the post-COVID, new ‘normal’ that has emerged in that time, we have a lens through which we can examine our current state of being. How did COVID affect us? What did we learn about ourselves, others, and the kind of world we want to inhabit? What have we buried beneath the experiences of the last five years, and what needs to be unearthed for a brighter tomorrow?

After living together in isolated but overtly intimate lockdown bubbles, what was there left to hide or disguise? Life shared at close quarters made it doubly difficult to avoid the testing behavioural traits of ourselves and others. Have we learnt to accept these foibles a little more generously than we did pre-COVID, or are we as intolerant as ever?

Five years on, it might be suggested that global society has indeed gone through something of a transformation. Despite the sadness surrounding so many deaths at the hands of humanity’s multiple stupidity, there was an occasional sense that we were participating in an enforced mass awakening of human behaviour for the benefit of All. And did we wake up? Are we now finally ‘woke’ to the causal nature of our thoughts, words, and actions?

It might serve us well to recall some of the behaviour to which we woke: the squandering of valuable time with those we love in pursuit of professional aspiration and material gain? The chemical charms of regular salon hair colouring and nail extensions, the coercions of fashion and bullying 'beauty' products upheld in the high temple of Hollywood? The unnecessary, hurried, and stressful nature of most car travel; the beauty of nature as it rediscovered its confidence in our pedestrianised presence?

The putrid pestilence of plastic... even if it kept our crisps crispier? The complete lunacy of avariciously abusing the ever-generous biosphere for excessive consumption²; the billions of tonnes of avoidable waste; the deadly viral evidence of continuing misguided human³ activity? The value of family and community: the true love of self and others? The excesses of air travel: the comfort of cleaner air? The lengths to which we had been complicit in living lives containing the seeds of our own misery and the paper-thin illusions we had come to accept in lieu of happiness? The need for appropriate investment and remuneration for the essential professions and infrastructure upon which we rely in such desperate times; the interconnected nature of all things, all people, dependent on each other to survive and prosper?

The inevitability of change and our inherent ability to align with it? The miracle of sensual perception, the delights of regular, low-stress exercise, and the simple charm of a healthy body and well-maintained immune system? The joys of peace and quiet? The elasticity of time?

For me, the woke list grew as the period in which I was faced with myself lengthened. Those with whom I spoke who embraced the opportunity to engage in an intimate, inner dialogue seemed amongst those most likely not to want the cultural dial to be set back to ‘normal’ after lockdown. It wasn’t the most politically palatable line of thinking, but, personally speaking, I didn’t want that normal anymore. Strangely, I came to like the lockdown normal. I was fortunate. I liked staying home and the people who were stuck with me. I had a garden. I liked that when I was allowed outside, I could walk most places.

I loved what I saw in the interaction between people and between people and the natural world. I enjoyed growing stuff, particularly fresh food. Folks here, just south of London in the UK, started planting seeds, shrubs and flowers on every available earthy kerbside. Every day on countless corners, sticks sprouted from the verge topped with skewered seed packets in a bizarrely immediate, printed floral prophecy of the delicate blooms to come. People were acting positively to make life more enjoyable for each other even if it took a little time and patience to achieve. Love was observed and exchanged at a two-metre distance, but it was love nonetheless. People stopped to chat, even with strangers. No one seemed to be in too much of a hurry.

Five years ago, were we getting a taste of a societal paradise for the claiming, albeit in unfortunate circumstances, one freeing itself of religious dogma or governmental engineering? Did human consciousness suddenly catch up with the bricks and mortar of modern living, ready to take up residence with compassionate, ethical, sustainable governance of our material 'cathedrals' and infrastructure – whether at home, in workplaces or Parliament? Heaven forbid, people were for once sharing the stuff they'd amassed, not merely from an honourable sense of duty but for the love of giving. Amidst the tragedy, I really believed something lovely was going on.

Where are we five years on? Certainly not in the more equitable world that I believed was just around the corner. The disparities between the haves and have-nots are exacerbated. The billionaires keep gaining and hoarding further billions while, according to Oxfam⁴, nearly half of the world’s population scrape by on less than $5.50 a day. Nation states have found themselves at loggerheads or, worse, at war. The financial and security implications have hit the most vulnerable hardest again. Overseas aid programmes have been decimated in a rush to assuage the trending politics of the populist right wing.

People are starving when there is more than enough food to go around. Divisions seem to have widened rather than healed. We may have developed effective vaccines to treat the COVID-19 virus, but we now face a mental health epidemic. In the six years between 2016 and 2022, prescriptions for antidepressants in the UK increased by 35%⁵. Have we learnt nothing about caring for ourselves and our neighbours? Are we not simply setting ourselves up for more separation, yet more of the self-destructive same?

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

(Gautama Buddha)

Thankfully, human influence has yet to disrupt the lunar calendar, an abiding heavenly rhythm evidenced in the wax and wane between new and full moons. In these uncertain times, there’s a strong case for tuning into this and other enduring, endearing tempos: the seasons; the natural cycles of death and rebirth; seeds sown, germinated, flowered, fruited and harvested; the clock of our hearts; the ephemeral tides of our blood and bone – an affirming intimate discourse with life itself.

During lockdown, I did not miss the morning alarm: my call to competition and the fear of lack. My time was my own and charted by moonlight. I had everything I needed. There was peace. Too infrequently, I consciously recall that memory into my busy, fractured todays by remembering to pause, then stop in silence. This simple action quickly reconnects me with the peace I feared lost to the daily noise; restorative gratitude for the abundant natural riches still available to me at no cost, returns.

As the mass media outlets never tired of declaring, those COVID months were unprecedented days. Surely, what has happened since is equally unprecedented and deserving of commensurate, concerted challenge, but how? In a post-COVID world, perhaps our most effective course of action is to set renewed personal precedents in thought, word, and deed to awaken our deepest longings to revive a life lived in loving peace. Here’s how:

Do make time for meditation/contemplation/prayer – call it what you will. This is a vital inner dialogue and key to the exercise of our intuition and creativity.
Don't miss the opportunity under this emotionally sensitive Scorpio Full Moon to sit still and listen to messages of your heart and the rhythms of your body as it breathes. Concentrate fully on nothing else for as long as feels comfortable. Start of the day, end of the day; thirty seconds of conscious awareness at any time during the day – it all contributes to a rising awareness of what and who you are – a walking, sentient miracle fuelled by Love.
Do make time to consider relationships that crawl out of the woodwork. A Scorpio Full Moon is liable to drag past lovers (and haters) back into the frame, so be wary of engagements that hint at previous lessons not fully learnt. Let love and understanding be the order of the day, not the seductive but tired menu of titillating what-ifs and maybes.
Don't confuse cordial consideration with intimate involvement just because you can. Greet, even meet, but send learnt lessons on their way with loving best wishes.
Do make time for the natural world. Notice her. Cherish her. Talk to her. Plant her. Nurture her. Eat her fecund bounty with gratitude. Share her. She's too good to miss in May.
Don't hurt her.
Do make time for a purge. Full moons are a great time to have a cleanse or a clear-up. Direct the light of this Scorpio Full Moon into those dark, secretive corners of the mind that continue to hold your personal growth to ransom.
Don't underestimate the power held in every thought, word, and action to create the reality you experience...but it begins in the thoughts. Mindfulness, therefore, holds a key to the self-empowerment that ultimately makes the world a better place to be. Think big; think beautiful, for the benefit of All. You can now listen to a selection of my recorded mindfulness exercises on Spotify⁶.
Do make time to divulge and divest. Open, honest communication may initially induce a sense of vulnerability, but it leads to a position of internal equilibrium and strength. When met with candid honesty, the world and, more importantly, ourselves, desist in perpetuating the illusions of who we think we are. We present as we are. In acknowledging our feelings and the resultant behaviour, we weaken the restrictive power of the past to affect our present and future.
Don't hang about. This is actually urgent business; there's a lot at stake. Although in the eternal scheme of things there’s really no rush, the quicker we change, so will the world that reflects us. Let's move together through our deepest hidden anxieties towards love, equanimity, and peace for the benefit of All.

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society…You are part of society; to affect the whole, the part must transform itself.

(Jiddu Krishnamurti)