What a year it has been. Each of us is utterly changed. I’ve seen a lot of memes & posts that suggest that 2020 was kind of a ‘throw away year,’ one that many of us want to dump in the trash and forget about. However from a deeper perspective it has brought widespread shifts in awareness that in retrospect we may see as pivotal in changing the direction of our lives and of life on earth.
I believe that this time and the decades to come will test all of our skills…every inner skill we have developed over the past many years of working on ourselves. We will need patience, courage; we will need to return to our hearts again and again even when our minds are telling us to be scared, or hurt or angry.
I have witnessed that many who are thriving now are doing so because the inner work they have cultivated up to this point allows them to really change, to not attach to what was but to embrace and trust the new. To become curious rather than fearful, to move through their inner panic or anxiety rather than following its misguided persuasions.
Real change is not easy for most of us. We tend to be fixed in our opinions, in our beliefs about what works in life. Our initial response when we are challenged to make a change is to brace and to hold on and to not let go until, we hope, things return to normal. Even if we are unhappy with what we are living, we will tend to hold on tight when something threatens our status quo. We may find ourselves clinging to a pattern, a job, a relationship that perhaps a month sooner we would have said we were sick of.
I have witnessed and I’m sure you have too that many people move right into fear, anger, anxiety, pessimism, and blame when their world changes. I believe that his comes from our conditioning in a culture is so dominated by the mind, and believes in the power of reason and of planning and of mental excellence to help us quantify and understand our reality. Many of us are not taught to trust, or to feel the earth supporting us. To feel each other supporting us. This concept of trust and surrender sounds foreign, naive, and silly to a calculating, capitalist-trained mind. Instead of trust or finding solutions together we go towards division and blame and isolation when things are not “OK,” when things are not predictable.
This year, each and every one of us has had to change our lives significantly. Not one person has been exempt from this. For some the change may be blatantly obvious like loss of job or loved one, for others it is more subtle. But we all have been asked to change, and to change quickly. If we can actually make the changes that are asked of us, we will find untoward benefits and a surprising gifts. I and many other healer and seers believe that right now life is functioning to connect us with our deeper intent and purpose, what our life is really about, what we really want for ourselves.
I spent some time with a friend who lost her job at the beginning of the pandemic when her place of employment closed. After the initial worry, what she found was that she desperately needed the pattern interrupt. It became an opportunity to really find out what she values and to really face how burned out, how stressed out and disconnected from herself she really was pre-lockdown. While now she isn’t making nearly what she was, ultimately she is happier and more fulfilled. She had the wisdom to let go and find out what this journey was going to be, to follow it and see where it led her without attachment to old pictures and ideas about what life is.
This is a time to dig deep into the root of your being to find what is purposeful, what is meaningful for you. It is a time to take more risks, to go out on limbs, to challenge yourself to create from your core uniqueness. The inevitability of our death is more obvious this year and with it an invitation to live more fully. As old systems break down there is an opportunity in the spaces left for new growth, new ideas. This is not a time to be complacent, but a time to look at what needs growth, what needs change in your own being, what is holding you in patterns of stuck energy that frustrate and make you sick or unhappy. What are the risks you haven’t taken? Are you contributing to life in a way that feels truly meaningful?
We are going towards the darkest point of the year now. The darkness each night is long, the days so short, the feeling of lockdown so oppressive. We miss our communities, we miss expanding and going out and being wild (or many of us do). Perhaps we want to rebel and rage or withdraw and give up, but what if there is something deeper moving through this lockdown for all of us?
According to the stars, there is. Solstice this year marks the final conjunction for the year of Saturn and Jupiter. These two planets have been in a dance all year, coming close and conjuncting, then separating and giving a breather. Without Saturn, Jupiter can have high values, high ideals, great ideas and yet can be self-righteous and lack the ability to make things happen in the real world. Without Jupiter, Saturn can be stern, repetitive and overly structured without connection to creativity and joy. When they come together just imagine what they two can accomplish. High ideals and spiritual principles connect with tangible structural changes. Creativity and grand ideas find the realness to back them up and make them tangible. It is what we all want, I believe, and it is what Spirit wants too.
It is really up to us what comes next. Up to our prayers, our hopes and dreams combined with our concrete steps to change ourselves and our reality, our willingness to participate and show up in creative ways. This dictates what happens next in our world. Each person’s creativity matters and is needed. Each person’s life force matters. If you are lacking the drive to show up in life, if the apparent obstacles seem too much, remember that you are needed and wanted, your gifts are important. The old paradigm that is leaving tells us that our material contributions are what matters most, our status and influence and position in the economy, our sense of control and dominance over nature. Thankfully, this concept of reality is falling away, if we each have the courage to let it fall away in our own consciousness.
I hope you’ll find some space on the Solstice this year, 12/21/20 to go deep within and pray or connect meaningfully with Spirit and with your community of like minded souls. Let us each do a small part in moving our world towards the equity, balance, and respect that humanity and nature deserve.
Photo by Mario Malvino instagram: mariophotorama