When I say that I am in this with you, I mean that I am also a person first.

I am learning and transforming, and all the while dancing that balance between business and personal. The line that distinguishes between the two is flexible and contextual. And this last season has been hard in ways I haven’t experienced before, ways I’m still struggling to articulate but that are deeply tied to my sense of survival. It’s important to me that my own healing and growth be prioritized alongside that of my business. It feeds my desire to express and create, but my creativity has been challenged lately and I am learning how to take a step back and soothe the voices that want to hold me to the very systems I choose to subvert through my work.  

 

I do not believe that we arrive one day having figured it all out. Anyone who wants to sell a system to solve a problem, inherently limits the solution and perpetuates the problem because harmony is not systematic. It is organic and relational and evolving. We as humans subject to a collective ego drive, create systems in an attempt to control our experience of life and then systems on top of those to “fix” where the enduring Cosmic Principle of Transformation cannot be contained. I’m pulling back from my own systems and reevaluating what I really need to engage with in order to feel supported, and I am choosing to trust (aah! So scary!) the rest that my being is demanding.  *more on the Memberspace below!

 

 

 

With the invisible force of a westerly wind sweeping away all that is brittle and untethered, this weekend’s New Moon Solar Eclipse is here to propel things along the new trajectory. Relationship dynamics and ideas about self-worth and value that we revisited over the summer, and then integrated this autumn, are now cornerstones in our individuated expression. Over the Full Moon in Aries, we took these new parts of ourselves for a test drive. Perhaps tenderly holding dear to what was—or is still—naked, refined from the process of alchemy and release, we made our first steps with new legs; consciously integrating a(nother) new perspective into our interactions and communication, and giving ourselves grace for when we roll our ankle or misstep. 

 

And as you may have found over these last two weeks, this is not just a process of externalization. You see yourself differently now than six months ago, even two months ago. While you may still be getting used to your reflection, catching angles you still don’t recognize, there is something pleasing that you hadn’t seen before. There’s an enduring stare from the core of your being looking out from under years of transformation, softly saying “here I am.” This part of yourself has been strengthened, made formidable by your attunement to your values. This part is the magnetic half of what is drawing you through this life.

 

In a recent episode of The Living Myth Podcast, Michael Meade explained a concept of two soul agreements made upon incarnation. The first of which is the agreement that the eternal self or spirit made when it was drawn by something in the material world, and it chose to incarnate. Many traditional myths and ideologies propose the belief that incarnation is a choice made in the infinite, suggesting an individual “reason” for being here. The second agreement(s) is that of the soul and the circumstances into which it incarnates; the body, the family, the time, the nation, the lineage, etc. As infants and children we make agreements to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our physical/material self. And as we grow, those agreements must change as our needs do. Eventually we remember the echo of something we can’t quite put our finger on… something else we’re “supposed” to be doing, or want to be doing. We begin to remember the agreement we made in the eternal place.We are tasked with balancing these two agreements for they serve each other. There are those who would choose to believe that there is no such thing as a soul or a reason for being here; there is a liberation and a comfort in relinquishing responsibility, in attributing meaning to nothing. However, for myself, I choose to believe that those reasons are infinite. If I’m going to participate, I want to do so by my choice—even if that is an illusion, it’s a game I’m willing to play. 

 

 

 

This New Moon Solar Eclipse in Libra is a most beautiful starting point. With the eclipse starting around 9:13am and the new moon being exact at 10:54am PDT Saturday, the morning will hold that great pressure before the transformation, the contraction before birth. We will only be able to partially view the eclipse in Portland, but places in southeast Oregon down into Texas will get the chance to see the total annular eclipse. A new moon is the beginning of the lunation, the start of the new cycle, and in the sign of Libra the focus is on our relationships, the pursuit of harmony and the dance of balance. Libra is not inherently balanced or fair or harmonious, it seeks and creates these things. It also has a penchant for justice, but it would rather not rock the boat unless someone else does it first. 

 

During a solar eclipse, particularly this one conjunct the South Node in Libra, we are offered the opportunity to reconcile how we see ourselves, resolve karmic lessons and release how we identify with or to our relationships. Perhaps codependency has shown up in places you never expected, or you didn’t realize how much you were personally identifying your sense of self with your relationships. Now that you can see yourself more clearly, you can swap out these ideas for a new perspective that balances your individuated expression while remaining open to collaboration. 

 

This moon is opposite Chiron and conjunct Mercury. So while old wounds may still hurt, we are aided by the ability to now communicate from a compassionate and empathetic perspective. Wounding does not make us broken people. It gives us a deeper insight into our own experience and the experience of others if we let it. So that we can speak from the place of “Here’s what I’ve learned from my hurt.” Much like the body—which is beautifully equipped to heal a gash, beginning with the soft support of inflammation—we can choose to create a softness that begins the process of rehabilitation and refuses further injury.

 

 

This season teases the material plane with glimpses and whispers from beyond the veil. Many cultures and traditional spiritual practices revere this time of year as a threshold between the waking world we live in, and the “other” world. The life/death/life cycle comes into sharper focus now as we watch the trees lose their leaves. The flowers and fruiting plants decay, offering their nutrient rich corpses to the earth. We witness death in nature as a brilliant flourish of colors and smells. We find ourselves beholden to this process in one way or another, as the year begins to wind down and we start to look back over our shoulder at the year through which we’ve come. 

 

Earlier this week Pluto, our collective transformer, stationed direct and with that pivot will be moving forward with the big changes we previewed earlier this spring. We may see some unprecedented shifts on the collective scale with regards to power and authority. The last 5-6 months have felt a little like a replay of old events, as in the same old stories being revisited.

 

Quite often, when we are in a transitional time individually, we may feel like we’re on the precipice of a big change but can’t yet take the next step or we don’t know where it will come from. And instead, frustratingly enough, what comes through is something familiar, something we know very well. I personally do not anthropomorphize the Cosmos/Universe/Source; I don’t believe it “tests” us or has a moral opinion. However, it does respond to the energy and the frequency with which you’re operating. So, if we are orienting toward transformation, but see something familiar instead of something new, perhaps we’re still carrying an idea or belief that is informing our choices and actions that is incongruous to the transformation we “want”. On a collective scale, we see all too easily the disparities between groups of folks organized around discordant belief systems, or clinging to authority with the entitlement of a toddler refusing to give up a stinky, raggedy old security blanket. And this refusal to move with the collective current toward transformation creates whirlpools and riptides that continue to loop folks into repeating events.

 

And of course, one individual does not carry the responsibility of changing the whole. It’s a collaborative effort born out of true individuation and respectful collaboration. But as Pluto begins its direct path back into the sign of Aquarius, What was your relationship to community like back in March and April of this year? What about to power? How has that relationship changed?