19 ShuiZhongLaoYue 水中撈月

Lift the Moon from the Water

月

I read the Chinese character for Moon, 月, as a full moon half-risen over water. The top cell is the Moon, the bottom cell its reflection, separated by the horizon. The tails are reflections caught by ripples on the water's surface.

There's something so graceful about the Phoenix's wings sweeping down and around to embrace the Moon's reflection here. This squat over water feels so grounded or whatever Water's equivalent of grounded in. Moving from high Fire to low Water.

Big squat here. This is the movement that makes me want to wear soft pants for tiger time. Jeans restrict this movement too much.

Feels more important to maintain energetic continence in the spine here. The squat is an open posture, but the back is straight, the perineum engaged.

It took me a long time to get around to writing this piece. There is profound beauty to me in this movement and in the image of lifting the Moon's reflection from the water into the sky. But there's a resistance here, too, a fear of what might be submerged, veiled by the silvered surface.

Master Wu says

Everything in existence has some degree of relationship, some level of connection – if you see the moon in water, there will also be a moon in the sky. The reflection shows both emptiness and actual existence. Real emptiness is not empty because there is actually something there. Just like the reflection of the moon in the water, you would not be able to physically pick up this moon; the reflection reminds us that the moon is in the sky right at the exact moment.

This ties in with the Emptiness Practice I have been beginning to introduce in my seated meditation and with the many-aspected meanings of the Moon in my magical and imaginal work.

I can't say everything I have to say about this at once and I guess that is all right.