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April 21st, 2023

I wrote a love letter/survival guide of sorts to help myself get through this time, and at some point realized it also may resonate with the collective. You can read it with your intellect but it will make the most sense if engaged with your felt sense.

it feels like retrograde it feels like eclipse season in my blood – magma below disrupted, reaching towards the surface

i encounter the familiar fear of an internal process towards revision – my internal landscape churning, being reformed

this wasn’t the plan. this wasn’t what i prepared for. i packed loungewear

bleeding with the new moon i observe the disintegration of the boundary between my internal turmoil and the external energetic, cosmic shifts.

i feel the change in the sense that we are all matter – the substance within my body influenced as heavily as the ocean tides

this is the happening.

A secondary process is how we as matter observe, synthesize, create meaning and react.

One of our most beautiful traits as a species is this orientation towards meaning. A yearning, a pull, need that some of us opt to dim, out of fear or necessity. When we can and do follow it we encounter guides. Some of us analyze the stars and help direct others. We connect around shared themes and symbols and they provide a tethering, a bridge out of the chaos and incoherence and into sense, resonance and understanding.

in this moment – i feel, with the help of some teachers, acutely aware of the charge in the air, friction creating sparks.

i am aware of my reactions, first fear, a timid resolve, and then genuine curiosity.

and i begin to understand, the tumult born from a reservoir long churning- now ready to be tapped. Something different is needed.

Many of us fear friction, for a multitude of reasons – whether what we learned it symbolized in our family of origin or whether we are so deeply overwhelmed that we feel One More Thing will collapse us – these messages are often unwelcome. Or far less welcome then say, an invitation towards a time of harvest, reaping fullness and abundance. So we opt to ignore, or to give it a momentary glance over and attempt a cursory solution.

the charge i feel in this moment needs something much deeper. it is necessitating acceptance, and perseverance through a time of diminished stability, certainty and clarity.

it is asking me to deconstruct in order to grow – and day to day that means patience, willingness, endurance, strength and courage, as well as the ability to know there is no one solution – yet that something grander is happening, something greater is generating, and how i interact with the process is helping shape that.

each step at which i resist presents another part of the lesson – not this anymore, not in that way

i am also being shown my ways of coping that provide for a false grounding, or an only ever temporary reprieve from that which needs true change

And what does this mean for I/you/we?

It’s an invitation to respect your sensitivities, the parts of you telling you something is off/out of alignment. There are natural movements that are allowing these tensions or imbalances to become more clear.

Feel free to try to stifle, ignore, or appease at first. It will persist. Look for the signs something is awry. Some examples, fights, prolonged illness, burnout, unintelligible anger, irritation or anxiety, a work problem that feels unsolvable… there are are many others. Notice what will not be resolved with all the strategies you are used to, comfortable with and willing to employ.

Once there is enough awareness that something cannot be resolved with ease or by normative means, stop trying to solve it.

Begin to to invite in stillness and quiet. Turn towards compassion and tenderness, even if they feel counterintuitive in such a tense or conflictual moment. Give time to this process – open yourself to creativity and curiosity as guides you can trust to help you navigate, this is their domain.

The nature of this energy – even it’s components of friction, tumult and change – are neutral, in that they are not negative or positive, “good” or “bad.” Yet we may be used to reserving stillness (a sitting-with), compassion, and creativity for moments or events that feel like openings – toward abundance, joy or hope – or perhaps those we feel sympathetic for.

To be quiet and still within what feels chaotic and incoherent can feel counterintuitive. Remember that the growth mirrors the process. Something different is needed.

Whether we choose to sit with it or resist it until it makes itself apparent, we may experience some pain. Remember, pain is a normal part of human experience, contrary to what the multitude of ways to “opt out” may lead us to believe.

What can provide a truer sense of relief, and is needed to help the process along, is our inherent and innate capacity towards care, love, compassion and tenderness.

Try this – make a fist with your dominant hand. With your other hand, try to pry it open. What happens? Now try cupping the fist, gently supporting it with your other hand. What happens here?

Our natural tendency towards tenderness can be witnessed in how we would or imagine we would interact with a young child in their own struggle. If we are resourced, we are able to be and come from a place of empathy. We hold them close to our hearts, taking them in, asking what is wrong, what hurts, and what may be needed?

And in their confusion, we continue to support, being with, not fighting, offering love as they meander toward a possible resolution. Consider your need is the same, as we never outgrow this core need for unconditional love. When you can talk to and be with yourself as you would a fragile child, seeking only to understand, not to change or manipulate, you are able to hold yourself in the state of love and trust that aids in diminishing fear and allows for the relief that can be found in a more genuine acceptance of what is.

Read that again.

This acceptance, when truly felt, held, embodied, opens us to the potential for enhanced creativity.

With the knowledge that something is shifting and that you are in need of some alteration to move along with it, we enter a space of curiosity, choices, portals. If we accept where we are, if we can accept the current state of the struggle, rather than resisting, we can become open to new opportunity and potential.

Open your eyes, your heart, and your mind, and consider the possibilities in front of you. In this, consider which paths you may have closed off out of felt necessity, as well as which parts of yourself have long been dormant. Note what is feeling charged in the energy of this friction. Perhaps these are clues.

Act on this creative energy, let it be a medium to the parts of you that are calling, that may long have not had a voice. Often, this will mean opting out of normative routines to turn toward these invitations. Perhaps this may take the shape of re-connecting with artists and muses who have inspired you, looking upon their work with voracious child’s eyes – or a practice of adorning yourself however you feel most charged, and taking her out, portraying the role of a much younger self – they key being not rigidity to role, but letting her play, shapeshift – into what feels uncomfortable and natural all at once.

Perhaps the energy calls you toward reconnection through writing – reaching the point where veracity emanates from you faster than the ink can flow or the page can catch your thoughts. Most knowing is remembering. Perhaps still there is the pull to re-align within nature, to drive hours away to commune with the mountains, flirt with rivers, revel in your body touching earth. And yet know, there is no perfect method. Some of this may be trial and error, a further exercise in understanding what is no longer meant for you. Meet these moments with that grace, love and understanding – and if you can muster, gratitude for this next lesson toward who are are and who you are not. This creativity and openness allows for the ability to remember who we have been, and in this who we can be. Roteness, normalcy, settled-ness, contentment may be disrupted, and yet this won’t be a loss. This moment is a breaking open towards our inherent truth.

Can you allow presence and reflection to be the currents that carry you? Being and awareness, living and grounding in all we have learned. As we meet more of our truth, there is a natural process of stripping away, or loosening our grip, as we flow towards a more authentic alignment. What are we remembering? What are we desiring? What can we no longer ignore? What do we need to let go of, and what do we need to retrieve, to keep becoming who we are?

When the dust settles, look around.

We may find ourselves somewhere strangely familiar.