Sagittarius Full Moon: Intuition

To the uninitiated, downtown Waikiki is a surprise; people don’t exactly expect a cosmopolitan urban center in the middle of the ocean. One first timer, describing her experience, said it felt like Las Vegas. For many, this part of Honolulu doesn’t match the expectation of “tropical paradise”; for others’ this mecca of shopping, dining and drink is Hawaii.

I like Waikiki. Yet some days it works for me, and others it doesn’t. Lunch on Duke’s oceanfront patio with our daughter and her boyfriend was delightful. A few weeks later, in Waikiki, I felt disembodied, like I was in a Japanese sci-fi horror movie and that night it took me hours to fall asleep. I felt so disconnected from myself.

That night, Waikiki wasn’t the right place for me. I knew that, yet I ignored my intuition. Upon reflection, I was distracted by other energies — often why we ignore intuition. I remember being confused about where to go, old ancient feelings of not being able to get my needs met came up, which were based on the past. Instead of pausing to reflect then, I started thinking earnestly about what my husband wanted for dinner (instead of what I wanted). Then, “Well, we have to eat, right? So let’s just go…”

Ugh. Lack of enthusiasm/joy is a sure sign that we’ve lost touch with our inner compass.

This isn’t an isolated event. The new, super sized Whole Foods may work okay for me one day, but the next, I walked away with a splitting headache.

So what gives? Intuition, in a nutshell. Every time I have an “off”, “bad, disconnected feeling experience with a place, person or activity, it means I have stepped out of alignment with my Soul knowing. I am not listening to my intuition. What is intuition?

Intuition is direct perception free from thought or reasoning. Non-rational, non-linear, non-logical “knowing”. I’ve heard it described as “Spirit knowing itself”. With intuition, past/present/future are simultaneous. There is no time/space distinction, so it is possible to know things about the future, or even about a past you haven’t visited. Intuition requires we get quiet enough to hear it. To go inward, sort out competing thoughts, energies, voices that override intuition’s message.

Intuition is a direct path to what is most right and true for you at this moment. It is the nudge that tells you to go to the library today, where you find that book you’ve wanted. It is the urge to sign up for a class, or to hang a right instead of a left, and go to the park, today. Do this and don’t do that (it’s not always necessary to take action on intuition, as sometimes identifying the message is enough). It usually doesn’t deliver Earth shattering news, though the consequences of not listening can be, instead gently guiding you toward your heart and soul’s highest experience– that’s why it’s such an awesome vehicle for information. Intuition relies on your presence and awareness to this moment, which is why mindfulness helps. Plus, conditions are always changing. What works for you this day may not tomorrow.

And, unfortunately, it’s really easy to ignore intuition.

It’s easy to ignore intuition… it doesn’t “make sense” to the mind. Easy to do, because we live in a world that worships the rational, justifiable, provable, quantifiable.

It’s easy to ignore intuition… we override it with other stuff. We mistake “something smells really off, here” for “oh, maybe I just feel this way because I’m in conflict about the situation etc.” (The old this isn’t intuition it’s something wrong with me argument).

It’s easy to ignore intuition… there’s a time gap between our direct “knowing” and the consequences of our experience, so we don’t always link the two together. This can be as simple as saying yes to a lunch date even as we get that “off” feeling, and then two weeks later having a negative experience on that date. We don’t often connect the two, but in hindsight we can go back and identify where we overrode our intuition.

It’s easy to ignore intuition… when what you “know” requires you to be honest about, and take action on, something that will be uncomfortable for you. What if your knowing tells you that you need to make a big change — but that change will have an impact on others, requires you to take a new action that feels scary?

That last one is my Alamo. I’ve avoided, or prolonged the agony, of quite a few my inner knowings for this reason. If I admit this irrational, intuitive, soul knowing into my consciousness big changes could happen! This can feel threatening to the Ego for various reasons, and those all need gentle exploring when you unravel why it feels so scary to listen. But especially if you are an intuitive type, not listening to your intuition can have dramatic and far more uncomfortable consequences than listening to it. Especially since your intuition only has your soul’s best interests at heart.

A few weeks ago, we were due to take a previously scheduled boat ride. The day before the ride I became extremely carsick while on simple errand. It was such a strange aberration, I knew it meant something, but what? I interpreted it as “get Dramamine and take ginger”. But the morning of the event, I awoke at 3 AM knowing I didn’t want to go. I went anyway. The moon was full. The water was incredibly choppy, rocky, and the boat was full of party people, exacerbating everything for me. I vomited the entire time.

Upon reflection, here were my 3 AM thoughts:

Ugh, I don’t feel at all well about this. I feel unenthusiastic and physically off about this. (Feeling bad is a warning sign that we’re headed in the wrong direction)

I don’t want to disappoint my husband. He has been looking forward to this. I have already moved this same boat ride twice! (I’ve got my compass pointed in my husband’s direction, not my own– which is a big warning sign for me)

I am being “too sensitive”, too “diva”, too “finicky”. (Ah, the old, “I’m too sensitive, it’s got to be a problem within me,” pattern)

I’ve come to see these types of thoughts and feelings as my “check engine” lights, a warning, if you will, that I’m about to go off the rails and off my inner guidance.

Notice that sometimes intuition functions as premonition — information about what’s to come. The carsickness the day before, an aberration, was a premonition. I’ve experienced premonition as being realllly sleepy, feeling tuned out, disconnected or feeling drugged.

And, yes, I’ve learned more about intuition by ignoring it than I have listening to it.

Why talk about intuition now? Gemini Sun season stimulates minds, restlessness, confusion, distraction and the potential to be all over the map doing a million things with no particular centering. By Sagittarius Full Moon we need to sit on the mountain top, get perspective, to find our coordinates on the map again. Neptune straddles this Full Moon, suggesting that our best guidance comes from Neptune, ruler of intuition.

It’s easy to be confused about our life when our attention is pulled outside of our self, in a million different directions. This Full Moon is an invitation to center, go within, to know thy self. What message have you been ignoring? Are you waiting for a big sign, instead of the little nudges or revelations you are getting?

In addition to my internal “check engine” lights, one of the most powerful things I do for strengthening my intuition is to simply notice when I’m feeling a little bit “off”, then become willing to pause and go a little deeper into inquiry. What am I doing, or thinking about? Am I ignoring a deeper message from my Soul? Most of the time it’s little stuff, like, let’s work on this, today, I enjoy this more, so let’s move away from that…

We often think of a psychic power, like intuition, as something supernatural that has to look a certain way; as though the only one capable of “knowing the future” sports a head wrap, crystal ball or even an astrological chart. But that obscures the truth, and your intuitive power. Everyone is intuitive. Everyone has access to inner knowing. Your knowing about “what is” is immediate and right here, and, with practice, it can be as natural and second nature as knowing it’s breakfast or lunchtime.

Intuition can only give you information one step at a time. We need to be practical and common sense about it. Listening to this moment means being patient with what we do not yet know, too. When we set the intention to partner with our intuition, and to walk in faith and trust with what we receive, we are flowing with the Divinity of our True Self, and that’s when we feel like the f***n Goddess rockstars we are.