Hi friends,
As we turn into the new year, we are entering into a collective moment of intensity. Just this week, Pluto and a retrograde Mars are facing off just before the nodes change signs. Intensity can usher in overwhelm and collapse or invite us into new octaves of emotional resiliency and creative action. Our ability to stay related to our present-moment experience with loving awareness and allowance for change is what ultimately determines which path we take.
From an astrological perspective, 2025 stands to be a major turning point marked by collective transformation on many levels (more on this below). With this in mind, I’m trading a perfectly refined list of goals for an extended season of reflection, integration, and exploration. I’m curious about what happens if I let go of reaching towards something specific and instead shape the future through consciously applying wisdom of the past in the present, while intentionally tending my energy and remaining open to the mystery of what exactly will emerge.
With this in heart, I’ve started harvesting some keynote lessons and guideposts from the larger cycle I find myself within. It’s incomplete — an invitation to linger in the reflection — but coherent enough to begin applying and refining.
Here’s what’s surfaced so far…
Despite living in a time of IG squares, 1-sentence bios, and “what do you do”s, you are not a box. Living as such creates stasis. Move as the nuanced, dynamic being that you are, a shape that you can draw and redraw as you grow in complexity.
Honor your unique nature — the way you are meant to be, move, express, and meet the world. It will land you into your parasympathetic nervous system, because the human nervous system knows coherence (and expresses it as deep, smooth breath; vitality; love).
Essence work is an ongoing practice that will enrich your life at all levels. Get clear about who you are, what you stand for, the ends you serve, and what you really need and desire. Remain firmly rooted in what you uncover, especially in the face of comparison.
The faster you move, the more momentum you have. This can be supportive when you find yourself landed in patterns that are serving you and the world around you. However, to consciously reshape your life — from your nervous system to your relationships to your career — you will have to decelerate and move slowly enough to find balanced footing as you try on something new. Go slow to go far.
Ultimately, we move and act based on a need or desire to feel something. Follow your feelings and learn your body’s way of affirming or denying. Then, trust yourself enough to act upon what you’re sensing, with radical permission to receive new information, learn, and evolve.
Have the hard conversation — with yourself and others. Lean in, with an open heart…wide enough for the inevitably messy moments to alchemize into more intimacy and authenticity.
You must grieve. Allowing for moments of catharsis leads to spaciousness and stillness, the place from which fresh, creative energy arises from.
Creativity and art is a pathway into the subconscious — a space to explore and say what we otherwise may not. Let the process itself reveal places of resistance and tension, and then artfully relate with that.
It’s impossible to move through life alone, especially moments of transition. Surround yourself with generous people. They will stretch you to give and receive more amidst the temptation of scarcity.
Find security and stability through love and freedom. It’s far more enduring and assured.
Be tough and tender. Explore simultaneously living at the center and edge of you life. It will stretch you…open, open, open, as life does.
Beauty is healing. Healing is beautiful.
So, are you making, are you becoming, art?
I’d love to hear what lessons have surfaced for you of late and the guideposts you’ve planted to support you in cultivating a life and world you desire to rest into…
inhale ; exhale,
Kathi
