5 Keys to Coping with the Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse

Understanding the Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse

by Abhijita Kulshrestha

So there is this eclipse happening on the 4th of April. And it is a full moon day also. I can already sense breathing getting faster for people who have noticed their own patterns fluctuate with the lunar rhythm! Yes, it’s a time when emotions can go all wild and batty, with the matter layered up deep within the subterranean realm of the subconscious forcing its way up!

It’s a funny thing… because the more you know that it disturbs you, the more you want to rein it in. The more you want to rein it in, the more it wants to explode. Full moon time is a phase that is replete with energy so strong, that the best asset in this time becomes the ability to ‘handle the energy’. You need to have space – psychic space, ready and prepared within you, willing to receive it. If, on the contrary there is emotional clutter, negative energy and ignorance or unwillingness to receive gracefully, chaos is bound to happen.

The stickiness of damaging old patterns is old news. But it is also one of the oldest known challenges for the human psyche. One may want to remain stuck in familiar old places, no matter how unhealthy they are. For transformation and growth forward, it is important that one be willing to embrace temporary discomfort and possibly even a very perplexing feeling of being lost. Any change is unsettling, even the best of changes come accompanied by a certain level of apprehension.

So know that with full moon energies the lull waters of your own psychic landscape will be stirred! You may be forced to visit places within the mind that unsettle you. You may have to acknowledge your own instinctual power and resume work on the purpose you have been born for. In this fast paced world, one can numb the mind with very many distractions and choose to look away, but with this recurring reminder … the burst of silvery mist that moistens the forcibly-made-barren emotional landscape, you will feel, think, ponder, grieve, celebrate, exult, recreate, live…anything but be lifeless. So choose your thoughts wisely, engage in living with gratitude, heal yourself and those around for the full moon energies will definitely amplify and intensify what you harbor within!

The story, this time around does not end here for what comes along is an eclipse! A total lunar eclipse complementing a perfectly full moon. One could get gripped in fear and get crippled with thoughts of an ominous impending event as eclipses have always been associated with such!

Or one could take off from the beaten path and consider if there is more to it. Eclipse is shadow time. It is time when the luminaries are devoured (of course mythologically and symbolically, and it’s for a short period of time) by the darker forces. To get past the fear, one has to look it in the face, in order to understand it. And when one looks it in the face, the biggest understanding meaning from it is that it is all within.

The universe simply mirrors the inner world. The dark forces are nothing but personal demons, the wildness of the self, the truth that stands in all its starkness – black, white and gray all uninhibited. The trouble happens usually because the dark side in each personality is neither acknowledged not given space to be!

Eclipse is such a time when this suppressed but undeniable inner component of self expresses itself. The more you try and deny existence to this inner wild animal, the greater force it will strike with. You accept its existence in all its truth, it will sniff and wander about for a bit and then go back to its dwelling, the subterranean recesses!

So what do you do to handle this full moon and lunar eclipse? Here are a few tips:

5 Keys to Coping with the Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse

Eclipse Key #1 – Opening eyes to reality and stop living in denial. A very firm Mooladhara or root chakra can help a person remain grounded and see things as is.

Eclipse Key #2 – Acknowledge one’s own dark side/ faults / flaws instead of festering in a victim mentality. Inner pity parties need to be shut down.