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7 Remedies for Eclipse Season (and Other Troubled Times)

DK Brainard

Eclipses amplify the energy of transformation both within ourselves and in the world at large. Even if we know that the accelerated changes eclipses bring are necessary for our continued personal and planetary evolution, we can be tempted to fall into despair, isolation and even suicidal thinking when the energy is running so high. To help you stay grounded, functional and vital during these intense times, I'd like to share my list of seven simple remedies you can use when the energy starts to feel too hot to handle:

1. Get in touch with Nature. American seer and prophet Edgar Cayce said that spending time in Nature was one of the surest ways to open one's channel to the Divine. In Puritan times, they used to tie lunatics to a tree in order to calm them. I've found that sitting or standing with your back to a tree is a surefire way to drain out anxiety and negative energy. Just sitting on a park bench or in a garden and listening to the birds sing or gazing at the butterflies and dragonflies can quickly put you into a mild hypnotic state and get you out of your ego-mind, which is the source of your anxiety.

2. Ground out the energy. Eclipses are energy amplifiers. They magnify psychic energy in order to bring about accelerated change. If you're a sensitive soul or someone who has done a lot of spiritual work to open your intuitive channels, you're probably more susceptible than the average person to the amplified energy of the collective unconscious that is bouncing around during times of intensified energy. Practices that ground out the excess energy (both the energy generated by your own psychic processes and the energy you're picking up from the collective unconscious) will calm you and restore a sense of clarity. Energy work such as yoga, aikido, tai chi and qui gong are great for grounding energy. But taking a good long walk or getting some vigorous exercise will also do the trick. Putting your feet in a living body of water (such as a lake, stream or pond) is a great way to drain out excess energy, as is simply standing for ten minutes with your bare feet on the Earth.

3. Reduce your expectations. When the ego gets hyper-activated by stress, it magnifies issues that are relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things into Giant Problems That Must Be Resolved Now Or Else! We are living through a transitional period in the history of our species that is nothing short of amazing -- we need to cut ourselves a little slack! During eclipse season, make the conscious choice to focus your energy on what is really important for your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual survival...and let the rest go until life calms down a little bit. Imagine you're on your deathbed, breathing your last breath and looking back over your life. Are you going to be heartsick because you didn't call that person back today or finish all those items on your to-do list? If not, let it go. Breathe. Live to fight another day.

4. Listen to music. Music is a great healer. Melody and rhythm carry us out of the left-brain "rational" mind with its emphasis on time, deadlines, guilt and judgment, and carry us into a timeless space where we can release stress and connect with beauty. If you're angry, listening to loud rock often acts as a catharsis. If you're sad, listening to sad music inevitably cheers you up. We're also living in a time when healing music is available to anyone with a computer or CD player. Brainwave entrainment CDs or MP3s (like Kelly Howell's Brainsync downloads or Tom Kenyon's work) are scientifically formulated to lower your brain's rate of vibration, helping you enter the alpha or theta mind state in a matter of minutes. Artists like Mike Wall take a more organic approach to achieve the same effect, using guitars, native flutes and nature sounds to entrain your brain. Healing musicians are creating amazing new spiritual art forms; check out Leigh Spusta's PsiMatix -- full body relaxation music based on sacred geometry! And kirtan singers like David Newman Durga Das and Deva Premal weave soothing melodies around ancient Sanskrit healing mantras that have been used to relieve stress and connect with the divine for thousands of years.

5. Get into the right brain. In my Transforming Fear into Power workshops, we learn that getting into the right hemisphere of the brain is the key to dissolving stress and solving problems in a soulful way. The left hemisphere of the brain is the part of the mind that thinks in words and concepts. This is also where most of our ego stuff lives and when we get overloaded by energy as we tend to during eclipse seasons, it can be pure hell to be stuck in the left brain with its endlessly repeating thought loops. ("What should I do now? Am I doing the right thing? Why do I feel so bad? I've got to do something about this. What should I do now?") The right hemisphere of the brain is the channel to our creative soul self, the part of us that thinks in pictures, gets lost in music and rhythm and beauty, and connects us to the timeless realm of the soul. There's nothing inherently wrong with the left brain, it's just incapable of solving the problems it prattles anxiously on about. If we really want relief, we need to do things that activate that creative right hemisphere: play, make art, move your body, sing, work a puzzle, ride on the merry-go-round, swing on the swing, feed the ducks. Anything that gets you out of the monkey mind and into a state of flow is a big step to regaining your sanity.

6. Change the scene. All parents remember this one. Your baby has been squalling non-stop for ten minutes. You think you're about to lose your mind. Your baby's face is turning purple and her throat is raw from screaming and no amount of bouncing, cooing, singing or rocking is going to calm your little angel down. So what do you do? You change the scene. You take the baby outside into the garden, or you jump in the car and go for a drive. Before long, like magic, you've got your child back. The ego-mind, when it's hyper-activated, is like a big angry, squalling baby. And the same trick that works on your little one also works on your monkey mind. If you're jumping out your skin from all the eclipse energy, go somewhere different. Take a little drive out into the country. Get in the bath tub and light some candles. Go see a movie or walk out to the beach. Sometimes just a change of scene is all it takes to bump your ego off its track and give you back the keys to your own mental space.

7. Pray. The Bible promises us that God won't ever test us beyond what we're able to bear. Most times when we don't get the relief or help we need, it's simply because we're so attached to our problems we don't think to ask for help. So ask. Say, "I need some help here!" If you think you know what you need (I need clarity! I need a break! I need a few good hours of sleep!), ask for that. I find just walking around muttering, "I need help, OK. I can't take this anymore. I really need some help," invariably brings an answer. A friend calls with soothing words. My daughter climbs on my lap and tells me she loves me. Money comes in the mail. Or I just start to miraculously let go of my death-grip on whatever problem I'm focused on and I actually find myself laughing. Doing a little happy dance. Or just sinking down into a chair and breathing again, knowing that whatever happens it's all gonna work out somehow in the long run.

Eclipse season can feel unbearably intense at times, but it is this very intensity that pushes us to do our soul work and grow into more of the person we came here to embody. As the Buddhists say about life on Earth, "Pain is mandatory; suffering is optional." I hope these seven simple remedies will help you alleviate unnecessary suffering and return to that calm presence at your spiritual center during these intense times of transformation.

(Thanks to astrologer Maria Shaw for contributing Remedy #6.)

D.K. Brainard is an astrologer, hypnotherapist and the publisher of Words for the People, featuring free weekly horoscopes each Monday. Catch DK's weekly Stars for the People astrology podcast (free) at EmpowerRadio.com.

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