Episode Details

Hello Good Friends,

It’s late summer and I can feel the seasonal shift. Here in the northern states the Earth is darkening earlier and staying dark later, its cooler too. The humidity has dropped and the insects have grown quieter in my central ohio village. The tomatoes, peaches, corn, and zucchini are in abundance, the pawpaws are ripening and chicken-of-the-woods are blazing orange on fallen logs. We even found some huitlacoche!

What seasonal shifts are happening where you are?

What are you harvesting?

Part of what I appreciate about the hellenistic and modern astrological systems is that they are tuned into these subtle seasonal shifts that happen monthly. As they track the apparent movement of the Sun as seen from Earth.

As earth-dwellers our lives are dependent on the Sun, and as the Sun appears to move through the sky—changing its range throughout the year (at least for those of us who live at a distance from the equator). We feel it, the plants and animals feel it. Even as our modern lives tick-on—we experience the seasons in quite significant ways.

The change from summer to late summer is one I have always felt the strongest. The long days, hot sun, increased opportunities for connection, travel and creative expression which in the heart of summer feel like they will never end (oh the magical thinking, generosity and wonders of fixed fire, leo). Finally give way to the grace of the setting sun, lingering shadows, ripening fruits and dryer days of late summer, with its back-to-school reminders (that I feel even though its been almost twenty years since I personally followed the academic rhythms).

I find my inner hermit tugging at the heart—inviting me to conserve, prioritize, remember what is essential. Though the light of the sun is falling lower on the horizon, the light of the heart is awake. This is the time of year assigned to virgo, mutable earth, the virgin, the hermit, the cultivator, the servant, the healer, the practical witch.

A body exposed to the golden wind! —Zen Teacher Yunmen.

Do you feel the seasons shift in your body too?

My local sangha, Mud Lotus, invited virgo season in with a vocal toning practice this past Friday on the new moon. Vocal toning is a practice of letting voice, body, breath and awareness join together with the soundscape of other voices, bodies and breath.

Folks who participated shared about the seeming magic of releasing their bodies and minds to sound and were surprised at the soundscapes that emerged with rich and layered emotional textures, as our bodies released, opened, shuttered and at times felt stuck. Others noted how their thoughts asked: how does my voice fit here? before releasing into the collective breath where each tone, each voice, each body, each block has a place.

The practice of toning has always been a part of my spiritual practice, and it feels good to be continuing that practice with local community here.

Our Monday night online sangha is continuing with the Summer Read of The Hidden Lamp, as we move into this late summer time.

This week as the dark moon started to reveal her growing crescent light. We read Nyozen’s Pale Moon of Dawn.

The nun Nyozen of Tokeiji used to meditate on the enlightenment poem of Chiyono as her theme for realization:

With this and that I tried to keep the bucket together,

And then the bottom fell out.

Where water does not collect

The moon does not dwell.

Later, Nyozen grasped the essence of Zen, and she presented this poem to her teacher:

The bottom fell out of the bucket

Of that woman of humble birth

The pale moon of dawn

Is caught in the rain puddles.

While the full moon in Zen is an image of our true nature. We asked, what about the dark moon? Which often represents—endings and new beginnings—the unknown, the mystery of death and birth.

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