New Moon

New Moon, October 16, 2020

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I am still in the white world across the chasm (from the past months’ stories). I’m continuing the process of figuring out how to create form from the void-like no-structure of this place. Two months ago, I experimented with laying symbols down to see what they created. Last month I experienced being on the other side of the boundary over which energy crosses into form. The boundary is like a veil or a membrane. Today, I’m still on the other, energy-state side of that boundary. Here, the “I” seems to have no identity, or rather, a universal identity. “I” am looking across to the world of form and from this perspective can see that symbols are containers, multi-faceted. Intent and action are inherent to them, in that the energy from here, this side of the boundary, leans into a certain direction and pours into the shape to create the symbols.
“I” was told to make my own symbol—a peace sign. “I” felt the state of peace to be symbolized, the kind of peace that is not from two opposites joined, but includes a third aspect that adds up to more than the sum of the three parts, and results in a deep sense of balance and harmony. It represented diverse perspectives and understandings, and created a point in common where everyone in the world of form could reach in to access an aspect of the state of peace I experienced.
Then “I” am told to make something that Chez could use on the material world side of the boundary to show people how to access this energy side. I made a hoop because “I” wanted the container the hoop shape provided, but also lots of open space to funnel people into the energy realm. Here, “I” was applying the intent and action aspect inherent in a symbol in the reverse direction, like opening the door inwards instead of outwards. Instead of energy pouring across into a form, people would be leaving form to enter the formless. The inner space of the hoop was “empty” to remove the sense of boundary between the two realms of energy and form.
What is the hoop made of? It’s energy from the energy state realm, concentrated at a certain strength or frequency. The people in the material world have to bend to dive through the hoop, lowering their heads, displacing the ego from its dominant seat. There’s less translation involved with this hoop. The peace sign, for example, in contrast, has its meaning contained. Though there’s more behind it, it is closed, sealed. The circle of the hoop, however, remains wide open. It’s not laid over, like the circle from two months ago, that yielded the forest. This hoop stays vertical, as a portal, a window, a gate that’s open. Instead of the focus placed, as it was then, on determining what the ground of being is, what you are standing on, the hoop is to do with what’s around you. It offers more multi-dimensional access. Once you define the ground, you are locked into a certain limitation.
Instead of “me”, as source energy, reaching into a defined contained form, “I” am allowing the material world to reach into my vastness. It’s a switch. Until now, the emphasis has been on the form, with a preoccupation with thingness. It was a directional flow that was disconnecting, that cut “me” off. And now “I” want the material world to reach back to source and be liberated again by being reconnected.
How will this impact the Chez in the material realm? How does this change her world? Now Chez feels herself part of the One, since she is reminded that all things come from the One. Can she consciously proceed through the day from that knowledge? Source, of course, exists in Chez, but she has free will. She has the choice to remain in the small perspective of disconnection, forgetting the truth and taking the material world at face value, or diving back into the energy state realm.

 

New Moon, September 17, 2020

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I found myself across from the brink that ended the ruined road paved with word bricks, on the far side of the chasm of last month’s story. In the white void there I had been placing the symbols to see what energy form they materialized. Today I went to continue that work, but the process of laying them down felt overwhelmingly tiring. It required too much effort. All this meaning-making—for what? I no longer wanted even what the plain circle would produce—the symbol that had held the most promise. I didn’t want any structure, any limits.
I gave up trying. I found myself dissolving. I gave up the idea of boundaries, of imposing structure and meaning, and let go.
Into the light.
Free. Relaxed.
Now I was without form, part of the void, and at the same time I could observe my other self, the one in-form, who had been working with the symbols. I could see how that self—so tense!—spends her time with her head down, intensely, dutifully occupied in thinking and trying to work things out.
Just let go.
In this free, no-limits state of dissolved being in the light, how does it feel? Expansive. Relaxed. Not sad, but emotionally empty and unattached.
I’m where energy is before form. I’m in the void itself, the field I had been trying to impose structure upon. I have no desire at the moment to pull myself out of it. From this state, this other perspective,  I can also observe the effect of the symbols I had been placing. The pentacle, for example, feels like an imposition of the human mind in its aspect of power-over, good and evil being illusions of separateness.
Why, in last month’s story, did the ankh create a forest? Why would the life force and consciousness be symbolized by trees? A tree is an expression of interconnectedness, of earth, air, climate, and water cycles, everything that enables the life community. A forest symbolizes life as it is liveable.
What then, was my role as a human arriving across the chasm in the new landscape of the void? From the perspective of the “I” dissolved in the light, an aspect of myself in form was consciousness evolved as part of the self-reflection and appreciation of the life force. The physical form of my body enabled that to be present.
Here’s how it evolved.
As a dissolved being in light, as that formless energy, before anything was created, “I” felt a longing to express. That longing popped into form as a little bird. It was a symbol of the pure life energy in form. So utterly tender and dear. Now the bird existed, it needed a place to land. So then, in order to care for the bird, “I” made a tree, then a forest, a pond and a river, and on and on, one thing after the other. The landscape thus appearing was vibrant and clean and full of life. But the bird, trees, pond, and river were of  “thingness” and separate from me, and I longed to unite them again with me as spirit, that omnipresent energy in a formless state.
How could “I,” as no-form, be with the bird, now separated in “thingness”?
“I” made people to connect my mind into, and a bridge “I” could flow across, into the human present with the bird, and back into the eternal now.
Before long, it got complicated. When the access is open, the human knows the truth that is vastness, the love, and the relief of no separation, no duality. The human can recognize the part of the bird and self that has the godhead, the energy from source—and that the thingness, though distinct and subjective, is all from the same source. But then humans grew preoccupied with the thingness itself. They only looked down at what they were doing instead of connecting out to me, all around. If humans cut themselves off from the immensity, they are still powerful but small-minded.
As creator in the formless state, I made and opened up that bridge to humans. Now they are preoccupied with thingness and have forgotten the bridge, I could force it open again, but no: humans have free will and must choose it, must ask.
In the formless field of energy, there is my universal “I” and also the possibility of innumerable “I”s because the field is latent possibility. The human can reach into these “I”s through the bridge access.
Once I had made the bird, and then the trees, river, pond, and so on, I couldn’t leave the bird. I was very drawn and connected and attached to all I had brought into form. Humans also. I love it all.
Love is awakened from the cool unattached realm when something comes out of it into form. The bird appeared out of my longing to express; then love was activated by its creation.
How do humans keep the channel open?
Sing.

New Moon, August 19, 2020

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At the chaotic edge of the chasm of last month’s story, from where the old paved road of word bricks lies all in ruins, the perspective zooms out across the foggy, murky mouth of the abyss, and suddenly you find yourself on the other side. It’s a pale and utterly featureless landscape. There are no words on the ground, nothing to give you direction or orientation. Try speaking and you realize even the air is different here—it can’t hold words; they have no sound. It’s as if you are dumb.
What do you have instead? You’re holding a symbol of the ankh on your hand—the pendant of your necklace. Try placing it on the ground instead of a brick. Suddenly an entire forest appears around it. Birds are there, too, singing— their voices, and the gentle rustling of leaves, are loud and crystal clear.
This forest feels familiar, reminiscent of the nostalgic (for you) forest beginnings of the original path that began between the massive, ancient trees. But, like the path, very localized and self-referring, lined with trees mirroring each other on either side, the forest around the ankh forms a circIe that is inward-directed, coherent but self-enclosed.
What other symbols do you have to try?  What else can you provide?
Lay a cross, similar to an ankh, on the ground and it makes a deep impact, like a agonizing brand burned into the tender ground, as if the raw flesh of the earth itself is seared.
Not that!
Try a pentacle. That yields not a forest but human-esque forms: the Devil, Pan, satyrs. With them comes a feeling of anxious fear around co-dependency and narcissism, even. You don’t want to keep that symbol on the ground, either.
What can you think of that is not laden or locked, as you find is also the case with the I Ching symbol you have considered but put away again?
You discover that a plain circle has power. It also has space in the middle, a common ground that is rampant with possibility. While the circle gives definition on the horizontal plane, it allows for other dimensions above.
Add to the circle an “s,” a symbol of a snake or a bird, and it flies up and inhabits or animates these upper levels, and actually brings them alive, also.
Whatever symbol you place on the ground is interacting with formless space to create a dynamic energy or liberate a particular element or aspect of energy that then becomes available.
That’s a lot to reckon with. Experimenting with the outcome of the various symbols you’ve applied has uncovered a lot you know you don’t want, even if you are not sure what it is you do desire.
Proceed with caution. You’ll have to try a range of symbols to test their impact, but already you have a sense of which ones not to play with, which ones would only recreate old and detrimental patterns.
Place a symbol with an unfavorable outcome and you can instantly remove it, as you have done with the cross and the pentacle, but indiscriminate or unjudicious experimenting will quickly cloud the field. You can wipe the landscape fairly clean of an unwanted impact, but each symbol will mark a trace; each choice has a consequence, and leaves the landscape each time a little less pristine than its original state.

 

New Moon, July 20, 2020

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Each new moon, I ask my guides for a story to describe the collective energy for the coming month, and certain tasks to help align with it. This is similar perhaps to an astrological forecast, except from a different perspective.
This is the fourth month of trying this and already it has been quite a journey. Each message is an adventure into the unknown, since the metaphorical story sometimes takes a little time to unpack as events unfold. I received the story on Monday, July 20,  but yesterday just got a clue about how to understand the meaning of this message. I was talking with a friend who is a college professor. She was discussing the new classroom landscape of pre-recorded lectures and pre-packaged curricula and how that might impact the quality of education. She suddenly asked me, What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
The light went on! I suddenly saw the paving stones and the pillars and arches of the story as part of the edifice of western civilization, founded on certain ideals. Education, as one of the paving stones carrying that edifice forward, had been embedded in the road with, say, the bricks of Knowledge, Freedom, Citizenship, and Peace and Prosperity. Hold Education in your hand, as a single brick, and it is meaningless, begging such questions as: Education for whom, and for what purpose? What kind of knowledge do we need to have? From whom? To what end? Damage the Democracy brick and the surrounding paving stones are also profoundly affected. Set the Education brick in a different context—for example, between Obedience and Authority—and it could start to take the road in a different direction.
If you’d like to share your interpretation and experience, I’d love to hear from you.

 

Story for the New Moon, July 20, 2020
You are following the broad earthen path lined with majestic old trees. Thanks to them, the ground underfoot is soft and springy. Their canopies dapple the way with shade.
As you continue, pillars start to appear interspersed between the trees, crude representations of the trunks they have replaced. These, over time, depart further from the original form into increasingly refined designs.
The earthen path begins to be paved. Each stone is a word—the way is laid with abstract concepts: Peace, Justice, Freedom, Liberty. Thousands of them. These cobblestones light up when your foot steps on them. But it’s a deserted, abandoned path, with no fellow travellers.
At this point, there are no trees left lining the sides, only the pillars, by now decadently ornate and no longer true to the source of their inspiration: they have lost all resemblance to trees. They span overhead into arches.
The road widens, opening up like into the broad mouth of a delta on the map. By now the words have lost their light. They are crumbled at the edges, with some missing from their settings. This means the others are more vulnerable to chipping and easily dislodged. The pillars here look pockmarked by acid rain. More are broken, the further you go. The way is in ruins.
A horizon line emerges ahead. And then suddenly you are right up against it, at the edge. What an abrupt ending: a chasm so wide that the other side is cast in fog. Some of the paving stones have tumbled over into the abyss.  Many are loose, the surface highly uneven, making the footing more treacherous. This is a dangerous precipice.
Standing here, you try to come to terms with this reality. You begin to weigh your options. What can you do? Much of the paving is beyond repair. Is the chasm even bridgeable? You don’t know what’s on the other side.
You pick up some bricks to see if some might be salvageable. But in your hand, one single stone—let’s say it’s the word Peace— seems useless unless it’s embedded next to Health, Security, and Justice. Some of the words seem puzzlingly old-fashioned—for example, Integrity. What do any of these bricks mean, out of their setting?
Now you feel nostalgic for the earthen path and the vitality of the trees, so authentically elegant and intact. That all seems so far behind.
Who made this road? It was a concerted effort, the strength of it depending on the cobbles being set tight together in a pattern, each brick drawing solidity from its neighbors, together making an enduring, cohesive surface. Remove one brick and the whole section is weakened. You can see how rapidly it happened, how taking out a few key stones loosened the rest, how easily the way is shattered, how swiftly, suddenly, you arrived at the brink.

 

Some tasks you might consider for the month ahead:
  1. What are the key concepts to pave the next steps into the future? Pick a few.
  2. Consider if they resonate with the origins of the way, that tree-lined earthen path in the forest.
  3. Those old trees provided shade and shelter. They influenced the terrain, softening the ground, building rich soil, inviting birds and a diversity of life. Obviously, what makes a path is what it cuts through, what bounds it on either side. How will you define the limits and parameters of your new path ahead?

New Moon, June 22, 2020

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Each new moon, I ask my guides for a story to describe the collective energy for the coming month, and certain tasks to help align with it. This is similar perhaps to an astrological forecast, except from a different perspective.
This is the third month of trying this—sharing the message and inviting you to join me on a journey. It’s an adventure into the unknown for me, too, since the story is metaphorical. It’s asking us to take a different point of view—just as turning the focus on a kaleidoscope re-constellates the entire scene, a re-positioning in the relational field affects the way we relate to the rest of the world. If you’d like to share your interpretation and experience as the month unfolds, I’d love to hear from you.

 

Story for the New Moon, June 22, 2020

Image: Petar Jadek, Unsplash.
Stumbling through a dense summer forest, you can’t tell where the spider webs hang until it’s too late—strands stretched across your face. You swat them off!
There’s something ahead—only the partial outline visible. Deer eyes staring back. Not until it breaks do you catch a glimpse of the entire animal and then it’s gone. Where? Already it is camouflaged again. The mats of low branches are like blinkers on your vision—if you look down to place your feet, you can’t see ahead.  There isn’t a path. You’ve lost the way and don’t really know where you are going, just swiping and blundering through the trunks and leaves.
Stop.
How did the deer move so easily? It took three bounds. It uses it eyes and its ears.
Now you’ve stopped, it occurs to you that, since there’s no undergrowth, lower down, near the ground, there is more space. If you crouch, you can easily pass between the trunks. You also have a view further ahead and all around. From hands and knees you can actually see the lay of the land, rising slightly. Under your fingers, the leaf litter is soft. When you stop a moment to rest, birds perch close on  low branches to watch, trying to figure you out.
Here’s a wide trunk—an old tree. This looks like a safe haven, perfect to lean against a while. It has escaped logging, survived storms and drought.
You are exhausted—not just physically but emotionally drained. Drift off to sleep.
Thanks to veeterzy, Unsplash.
Wake up, and, with your wits about you now, you think to check out the other side of the tree. How funny that you didn’t notice before: a path!  Old, wide, gracious trees line an earthen trail that carries the tracks of animals as well as humans. It’s such a relief to stand upright again, and have the space to freely move.
Where does this new path go? Now you’re curious to discover.

 

Some tasks you might consider relating to this new moon cycle:

1. If you can’t see the forest for trees, don’t keep struggling. Try a different approach.
2. Be humble and “lower” yourself.
3. Regroup in alignment with the wisdom of experience and then the path will become evident.
Thank you for reading!

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© Chez Liley. All Rights Reserved.
Art © Holly Duane. All Rights Reserved. Content © Guiding Stories 2021