Note 2: I want to dedicate this entry to Yoshito Ohno, who would mention the full moon and her relevance to humanity as a metaphor in many of his classes.
Pretty much like during insomnia nights, this eclipse season -thanks to the opposition of Pluto in the South Node to the Sun in the North Node- has confronted us to all the dirt we have been willing to hide under the carpet. This time around, more than emotional purge, the surrounding energies have led us to heal our inner child and embrace our wholeness (acknowledging and loving our miseries). Poorly managed emotions have had to undergo this terrifying tunnel in order to be channeled. Still, the full moon in her brightness and cleansing power has remained there as our spiritual lantern. Like a wise mother, she is always there to guide and comfort us in hard times and to celebrate with us during joyful moments (somewhat like a disco ball!). The dark night of the soul we have undergone these days has come to shake our old crumbling structures, in order for us to be able to build our new reality on more solid grounds. Of course, the richness of this soil is directly linked to the compost of the old. Because we walk on the remains of our old selves: just like in butoh practices, we walk with respect for those who and that which preceded us.
Again, the key here is to be present and to focus on our way, on each step. Interestingly enough, when we """fail""" when giving a step, we never go back: we honour ourselves in our wholeness, with our failures and successes, and we keep on walking. Each step is magical and each step creates magic. That's why I encourage my students to stay focused on the now of each movement, not just in terms of "dance technique", but as an exercise for life: staying present, finding our zero point in order to connect to our inner source and infinite creative nature. To me, "butoh technique" goes way far beyond physical ability or dexterity, body creativity and even spiritual connection. To me butoh technique requires our total devotion to Truth, to our Source, demanding us to be assertive while being humble. And that humility is exactly what the Moon has come to teach us as humans in general and performing artists in particular: to allow the light to shine through us. For many traditions the personification of the Divine Feminine and the Divine Mother, she is here to remind us that we can touch each other's souls and hearts just by being, without any added intention. When butoh walking, vertically and horizontally aligned, with our chakras connected, our head, heart, breathing and body in perfect communion, we bring Heaven to Earth, since we invite our higher selves into our physical manifestation. When integrally explored and felt, butoh is a wonderful tool that can help us connect with our innermost desires and manifest them into being. In a way, butoh means surrender: to allow Spirit talk and express through us, through our inanimate bodies (in Hijikata's words and poetic universe), no bias or preconceptions, no judgements. And there is where any manifestation is possible, that is the origin of creation.
Indeed, the dismal tunnel -the dark night of the soul- is uncomfortable and scary. We feel confined and constraint, our vision blurry and narrowed, and our movements limited to its narrowness. Just like in butoh walking, we need to keep our movements simple and stay focused. We cannot run, since the way is not clear, but defined step by step. We cannot look back, since the cramped passage does not allow us to turn. But what if that impossibility is actually a blessing? What if Orpheus hadn't been able to turn around and look back? What if that constriction is actually the key out of the tunnel, together with the dim light coming from the Moon at its end, like a silver thread pulling us and guiding us out, pretty much like Ariadne with Theseus? By surrendering, we allow ourselves to be guided, instead of pulling from or manipulating that thread. This eclipse season which is about to end has put us in the position to trust that guidance, which in fact comes from our inside and is reflected in the outside. We are being encouraged to embrace ourselves in our wholeness, shadows and lights, such as the Moon encompasses the moon and the sun, by reflecting his light.
"You ask me to explain myself, but I am far from words, logic, discursive thought, intellect... I am a secret and inexpressible state; I am the beginning where all deep knowledge begins, when you immerse yourself in my silent waters without asking a thing, without trying to define anything, when you stand outside all light. The more you enter me the greater your attraction to me. There is nothing clear in me. I am bottomless and all nuance, I extend into the realm of shadow. I am a swamp of immeasurable wealth; I contain all totems, prehistoric gods, the treasures of times past and times yet to come. Beyond the subconscious, I am creation itself. I steal away from all definition. (...) I am the universal mirror, everyone can see himself in me."
In his Way of Tarot, Alejandro Jodorowsky seems to put in perfect words this process of the soul: "In the center of these womblike waters there is a crab or a crayfish that can be viewed as a symbol of the ego aspiring to contact with the moon. This contact already exists: the crustacean and the celestial body share the same colors. The crustacean desires union with the moon without knowing, like all the elements of this card, that it is already in communication with it.
The crustacean is carrying a blue ball in his pincer, an offering from the depths.
We can view the crustacean either as immersed in the deepest depths of the water or, to the contrary, swimming on top of it. In both cases it encourages us to establish contact with intuition, this buried treasure we all carry. We can also see that it is carrying two balls like offerings in its pincers. The ego has something to offer in the spiritual work.
Therefore, depending upon how we look at this card, it will either represent deep intuitive
communication or solitude and separation. We could imagine that the crustacean has come out to steal the blue balls he is holding in his pincers, that the dogs are fighting him, that everything feels cut off from the moon and its spiritual force. The drops could represent its receptive capacity, but could also, in a negative sense, represent an insatiable absorption of energy. The card then refers to madness and mental chaos.
Equally resonant in The Moon are fear of the dark, nightmares, and all sorts of worries linked to the unknown, sometimes without constraint. It can symbolize poorly defined anxieties, but also a voyage across the sea or arrival at a port. It tends toward reverie, and to all the states of soul generally associated with a 'lunar' or 'lunatic' nature.
Its infinite receptive potential is its greatest treasure."
Jimena Fernández Pinto, in her book Tales of Destiny portraits this process, in which the Hero undergoes through this transformational stage depicted in the card in its different illustrations and versions (most of them containing the same elements, such as the lake, the crab, the two dogs as the towers... apart from the Moon, of course). [On a side note, the richness of a picture and its application to butoh reminds me of Seisaku's class in Tokyo, in which he would encourage us to dance a photograph in its angles, shapes, movements, tensions, moods, colours, lights and shadows.] Back to Jimena Fernández Pinto and her explanation of the dark night of the soul through this Arcana: "Because in The Moon the important thing is the transit and this is witnessed by the towers built on the other side by those who previously crossed the cold lake of the crab, passed through the dogs and saw their monstrous shadows.
This is the great card of the imagination, and to be more concrete, it is the card of the land of dreams. It is illuminated by the light of the moon and also by the sun through its reflection in the moon. How would the Hero's journey have been to her? How would have he traveled through this place? (...) With imagination, anything works. If you can imagine with freedom, you can be free. If you allow yourself to be trapped by her traps, you can be a prisoner. Here more than on other occasions a higher self (not our ego) can lead us beyond the guard dogs and the two towers that are seen at the bottom of the card. What will be further?"
And further is the Light, the Sun (Arcana XIX). Further is Unconditional love of self and others. Further is the heart chakra. But to enjoy all this brightness we really need to dare to go through our darkness, embrace our shadows and feel complete again. The dark night of the soul is transformational, yes. It is evolutionary, yes. But in that evolution we are supposed to honour ourselves in all our aspects, in all our versions. Such as in butoh we can feel the bugs and ancestors forming the different layers of soil on which we walk, in life we need to embrace who we were, that old vehicle which brought us here. At the same time, spiritually and in butoh we work with getting rid of layers and layers of programmings (pretty much like an onion, as Tadashi Endo usually mentions), but to me it is essential to honour them for having made us who we are. In modern culture we are used to throwing away whatever we feel is now useless, which has brought us well-known garbage and contamination problems all around the world. In new age and cool spirituality, we are constantly told to release and get rid of anything that is toxic or doesn't fully resonate. Yes, of course it is an excellent way of deprogramming or lightening up our crammed beings. Still, to me it is important to pay attention to the game of balance, the 5th dimensional way of thinking (in terms of and not or): we seek to be who we want to become, we get rid of that which does not resonate with us anymore, yet honouring that lake of the crab which has helped us arrive to the two towers in the back of the Moon card.
This way of thinking and acting can give us richer experiences both in life and performing, since we will be building a bridge between past and present, darkness and light, old and new. Plus, we are starting to understand that the way towards abundance is through gratitude and appreciation. This is the gift of fhe XVIII Arcana, linked to imagination, creation and manifestation; offering us the key to unlock our subconscious, to actually choose to drive our vehicle to wherever we want, without being driven by an autopilot we are keeping in the dark out of fear. Exploring our subconscious, daring to face our fears and go past the howling dogs under the moon, choosing our steps and allowing ourselves to be guided by the light will be esencial for us to receive the blessings of the golden rays coming from the sky, which will become brighter and warmer at every step, until we reach the dawn and the sunflowers under the Sun.
- Fernández Pinto, Jimena: Los cuentos del destino. Ediciones Obelisco S.l., 2009.
- Jodorowsky, Alejandro and Costa, Marianne: The Way of Tarot. Translated by Jon E. Graham. Destiny Books. Toronto, Canada.