There are some things we are not meant to release.

I have been thinking about that a lot lately.

We hear the language of release constantly around the Full Moon.

Let it go.

Release what no longer serves you.

Close the chapter.

Move forward.

But what happens when the thing you are carrying is love?

What happens when there is something—or someone—you have absolutely no desire to release?

This Pisces Full Moon has given me an entirely different understanding of surrender.

On August 27–28, the Moon reaches 4°54′ Pisces during a Partial Lunar Eclipse.

And for me, this isn't simply another lunation on an astrological calendar.

This Full Moon reaches fullness on the day I chose to celebrate my son's life.

My heart is shattered.

So I cannot write about this Moon from the comfortable distance of someone who has crossed the ocean and returned with wisdom about the voyage.

I am in the water.

And perhaps that is precisely where Pisces asks us to meet.

Virgo Asks Us to Do

Across the sky from the Pisces Moon stands the Virgo Sun.

Virgo understands the tangible world.

The body.

The medicine.

The appointment.

The calendar.

The things that need organizing.

The details that somehow still need tending even when your entire universe has changed.

Virgo asks:

What can I do?

There is enormous medicine in that question.

Until there isn't.

Because eventually life introduces us to something we cannot organize, repair, negotiate, schedule or love hard enough to change.

And then Pisces asks another question:

What happens when there is nothing left to do?

Perhaps this is where surrender begins.

Not surrender as defeat.

Not surrender as giving up.

And certainly not surrender as ceasing to love.

Surrender becomes the acknowledgement that we cannot control everything we love.

I Do Not Release the Love

This is where I find myself resisting so much of the traditional Full Moon language.

I don't want to "let go" of love.

And perhaps I don't have to.

Perhaps we have confused release with forgetting.

Perhaps moving forward does not require moving away.

Perhaps healing doesn't require us to reduce an extraordinary life, relationship or chapter to something we've successfully "processed."

There may be things we never get over.

Perhaps some things simply become part of us.

So beneath this Pisces Moon, I am choosing something different.

I do not release the love.

I can release an ounce of guilt.

I can release an unanswered question.

I can release one moment I keep trying to rewrite.

I can release the future I thought would happen.

I can release what love no longer asks me to carry.

But the love?

I keep the love.

When the Moon Enters Shadow

During a lunar eclipse, Earth's shadow crosses the Moon.

For a moment, part of the luminous Moon becomes obscured.

But the Moon hasn't disappeared.

She remains whole.

And that image feels particularly sacred to me now.

Shadow does not equal absence.

Darkness does not equal nonexistence.

Something can disappear from our sight without disappearing from the story of who we are.

Something can no longer be touched and still have touched every part of us.

Love can lose its familiar form without losing its significance.

And perhaps that is what love eventually teaches us.

How to hold differently.

After the Sun Sets

During Leo, I created a meditation called After the Sun Sets.

I didn't realize then how beautifully Pisces would complete its sentence.

Leo whispered:

After the Sun sets, the light remains.

Pisces answers:

When form changes, the love remains.

And somewhere between those two sentences is where I find myself now.

Not trying to turn grief into enlightenment.

Not searching for the cosmic reason.

Not trying to convince myself that everything happens exactly as it should.

Simply acknowledging that love happened.

It mattered.

It changed me.

And therefore it remains part of me.

What Love Cannot Lose

Perhaps that is the invitation of this Pisces eclipse.

Not:

What are you ready to release?

But:

What are you finally willing to stop trying to release?

Maybe there is something sacred that deserves to remain.

A memory.

A relationship.

A dream.

A person.

A version of yourself.

A love that changed the architecture of your heart.

You don't have to throw it into the Full Moon fire.

You can place it gently beside you.

You can say:

I bless what was.

I honor what is.

I release what I cannot carry.

And I keep the love.

Because what love has touched, love remembers.

What love has changed, love carries.

And what love cannot hold in form...

love learns to hold differently.

May what was loved remain sacred.

May what was lost never be reduced to its ending.

May the ocean carry what has become too heavy.

And when we cannot find the light...

may love remember the way.

Ashe’. 🌕🌊❤️‍🩹

Tonya Dee
MirrOracle — Mirror + Oracle + Miracle
Remembering who you are.