104: BACK TO SCHOOL
WED 02 SEPT 06:22 - Mooning Monthly turning a new leaf and sharpening its pencils for the start of term....
Happy Pisces Full Moon dear friends It's that time of year when our deeply ingrained longing for fresh exercise books and new sets of colouring crayons finds its voice. And why resist the subconscious new term's call? A new academic year brings with it the chance of a clean slate, the prospects of new beginnings and friendships - the opportunity to reinvent ourselves and our life experience into something closer to our aspirations. And, of course, to learn new stuff wearing a uniform.....Now, if you've quite finished chattering, settle down, face the front and read the next paragraph to yourself. I said, TO YOURSELF! If handled sensitively, the influence of this Pisces New Moon can help unlock the stationery cupboard of our dreams and start on a new page. The next fortnight provides welcome respite to ongoing restrictions and frustrations as the personal and collective systems, power structures and institutions in our lives, struggle to adapt to the rapidly changing world around us. This would be the fortnight to start challenging outdated, negative mental constructs by employing a school satchel full of positivity whilst exploring new possibilities.........It's not that I think that what you've done so far is bad, it's just that I think you can do better. With Pisces influence to the fore, we can walk through our personal school gates every morning and aspire to an openhearted, creative approach to new circumstances that accommodates, adjusts and adapts for the good of All, not just our own selfish motives. We might seek to change habitual, negative thinking and behaviour from within those institutionalised, excessively labelled walls of self-definition. Internal (rather than external) validation will be key.......If not, it's only your time you're wasting, no one else's! Who has written the rule book of the establishment we have built to attend on a daily basis? Who determines the punishments handed out for disobedience in the corridors and cloakrooms that we police ourselves? How might a little well considered, personally tailored homework inform and redefine our schooling? Who devises the examinations by which we chart our success? Whose is the mark book that dispenses failure? It is wise to acknowledge our part in the answers to all of these questions.......You'll all suffer if you don't tell me who did it. Don't all put your hands up at once. If we had to attend a school today what would we want it to look like? For what would we be studying and testing? Learning skills to compete and prevail in the marketplace or exploring ideas and understandings of our planet, people and the significant effect we have on both? Would there be a place for an ethos of consistently reasoned allowance, encouragement and inclusion rather than a dependence on a rigid, restrictive rule book (ideology), full of more dont's than do's? Would a failure to abide by the school rules lead to eventual alienation, even exclusion, or could systems shape themselves towards a wider curriculum: one that cares for the needs of all it serves?....... Otherwise, you will have let the school down, you will have let your parents down but, more importantly, you will have let yourself down. We are all creatures of cultural convention and our educational establishments naturally reflect this. We have been schooled since we were infants to judge ourselves in grossly simplified binary terms: male/female; ugly/pretty; introvert/extrovert; successful/failure; likeable/disagreeable; winner/loser; important/dispensable (the list is as long as human misperception) - none of which, in essence, is true. We are the amalgamation of every living shade of creative diversity that makes us the individuated spark of perfection we truly embody. There is no grain of sand, no ant, no leaf, no snowflake, no human that is the same. Each is its own individuated form of perfection and a vital part of the whole - or else it would not be here. (Quantum Physics article - Everything is Energy - thoroughly recommended)........You've all been brilliant so far, don't spoil it now....CONCENTRATE! And yet, in all our myriad, colourful differences, the spark that infuses and animates us is the same expansive force that infuses all existence, from the rain drop to an imploding supernova. The same in the One and the many, it is the unifying, all encompassing, binding life force. To name it in order to ignore it seems a peculiarly human trait, but some may know it as Love....... I suppose you think that's funny, do you? You won't be laughing when you're working in a kebab shop! The disparities and inequities of human experience arise only when human ideas are laid over and dominate that which already intelligently exists in natural harmony and balance.....I don't care who started it, stop it, NOW! Might our core curriculum concentrate instead on realignment with life's natural harmony and balance, an alignment of unified understanding that nothing lives separate of anything else? In short, to hurt another is to hurt the self. To love another is to love the Self. To love the Self is to love all there is.....for truly, there is no 'other'. Is that understood? We are all learners in life's classroom. Do we currently have confidence in the parameters of that learning experience? If not, this is a propitious week in which to consciously define our own. Whether aware of it or not, by our thoughts, words and actions, we design the classrooms, the rule book, curriculum and examinations. This Pisces Full Moon offers an opportunity to open a new notebook, to turn a fresh page and consciously determine the significance of every lesson and examination for which we turn up to register....Am I making myself absolutely clear? As always at full moon, our emotions and instinctive behaviours (conditioned responses) are set to hit their peak - whacked up to 11 in the sign of Pisces. Let's harness this awareness to create a memorable start of term. Let's recalibrate our modern language curriculum to the vocabulary of Love. Accordingly, we offer a few do's and don'ts conveyed in a loving classroom vernacular that might yet translate this sensitive Pisces Full Moon into a truly creative, educational semester......Do I have to repeat myself? DO get out in the playground. Make new friends; allow yourself to have a laugh with those you previously might not have bothered with. DON'T keep yourself to yourself. You have a perfect part to play in every social situation and every conversation - even if it is just to listen.....Oh, you can listen and talk at the same time can you? - How clever! DO learn something new. Try some new activities - maybe enroll in a beginners language class or take up a new hobby or sporting activity. DON'T think an old dog can't learn new tricks. That's horseshit and an excuse for passivity. We just get less used to learning the older we get. It's a skill like any other and needs to be practiced for good mental health. Use it or lose it. (Science Daily - Learning New Skills Keeps an Aging Mind Sharp) Practice makes perfect! DO open a new notebook. Treat yourself to some new stationery, pens, glue stick and pencils. DON'T make do with an old jotter. Buy yourself something with a hard cover and some decent paper that makes whatever you do in it look special. It's a good way to build confidence....There's a detention waiting for anyone that doesn't bring the right equipment to their next lesson. DO some copying of stuff you like. You're own version will be just as valid (and probably more interesting) than the original. Write out a poem; song lyrics or copy a painting/drawing you like. Copy a photo you have on your phone. Stick something in your notebook every day: newspaper article headlines, interesting bottle labels; scraps of colour that you pick up on your travels. As your confidence builds start to work from your own ideas with the stuff you've collated. Fill the pages as you see fit. The more the merrier. NO RULES! DON'T be bashful. This notebook is just for you, something of a personal visual diary. No one else need see what you're doing in there. It's your personal classroom and playground in which you tutor yourself to greater confidence of expression, purpose and fun....Just try your best please. DO compile some well considered wishlists - particularly in the run up to each new moon. Throw in your own written thoughts; upon waking maybe give a brief description of a dream you've had; record what you've had for dinner by incorporating written words into a drawing of the dinner table after eating for example. Nothing is irrelevant. Come to see the notebook as an observable extension of your thought process. DON'T underestimate the power of creativity in whatever form it takes. Creativity is at the heart of all existence and to align with it, even in a notebook, is to follow the curriculum of Love.....But, if you're going to continue with your incessant chatter, I'll have no choice but to make you sit on your own. DO switch off the telly and work the notebook into your daily routine (advanced students might be able to multitask with their screens running) DON'T stop...... which part of that sentence do you not understand?
7/10 Could try harder? 1 merit for perseverance. We hope this educational message finds you happy, healthy and in the mood for study. Do please share this scholastic scribble with friends of similar sensibilities - it's another expansive way in which Love continues its unlimited journey of learning.....about itself. Happy schooling Mooners With love 'til next time....
FULL MOON MARKS
EACH MONTH WE PUBLISH A LUNAR INSPIRED DRAWING BY MARK WEIGHTON
PISCES FULL MOON
18 x 18cm charcoal on paper
The ninth of 13 Full Moon inspired drawings for 2020 by artist Mark Weighton