The Dance of Balance

 

This month is one of my favourite times of the year. I love the concept of how cycles of time are all reflected and I see that autumn is very much a mirror of dusk, another favourite of mine. After all the outward energy of summer, Mother Nature is now turning in once more, the colours are changing and she is at her most beautiful, in my opinion that is. The year is, symbolically, dying but it is beautiful and we are being asked to find love and beauty on our way as we journey with her. Now the days and nights are of equal length and balance, and the beauty of this idea, is at the heart of the wisdom she is passing on to us for this moment. 

This is the first time that we get to experience a month that has an astrological opposition. We can look to the beginning of the seasonal year, the Spring Equinox, which reflects the birth of our life. After six months in childhood we are now ready to step into adulthood, into our heart chakra, look at the mirror, the others in our life, and fall in love with our reflection. The understanding is that we are being asked to see the others in our life and realise that everyone is just a reflection of ourselves. 

Scientifically, we see this as the human egg cell divides and divides to create one whole being from that initial piece of information, we too are created as a human race in the same way. We may think we are separate from each other but actually we all a part of the same being, the body of the human race; all inherently and genetically connected.

By learning to love ourselves we can find empathy and harmony in our world by sending that love to everyone we bring into our lives. The more I travel on this healing journey, the more I am coming to understand that this is the most difficult thing to ask of anyone.

Life is calling us to come into balance, to find the common ground between us all. - 
 The elements are continually doing this as the atoms with the least or highest atomic numbers are constantly looking to chemically bond with others to get to the middle ground. - 

It is easy to think that, as a society, we are all pulling in the opposite direction from each other. This is, undoubtedly, causing friction. While we become more and more unbalanced, our ability to find ways to resolve this looks less and less likely.

That is the pessimistic view of course and I am the ultimate optimist. The darkest moment being just before the dawn, can never be over-stated and this, I trust, will be our hope and salvation.

It leaves us with interesting times ahead until we see it for what it is.

The story of the archetypes involved here are the Aries warrior or foot soldier, (Aries is ruled by Mars, the God of War) who is quick to react, leaping to action without thought and Librans are the rulers hoping to create a beautiful and just world (the scales of Justice symbolise Libra). When society becomes out of balance with itself, then the shadow aspect of the archetypes come into play. The Libran rulers and judges, become warlike, wanting to push their ideals on those who they believe are against them. They are the ones who send the Aries soldiers to fight their wars for them.

This is what we are seeing today. It is the mechanism of Social Media (which has the potential to be, and is often, amazing) when in the hands of those in power and in fear (and I believe this is the majority of people, not just the rulers, as we have not yet realised our power, but we have it nonetheless) that can wield a divide in society that drives the wedge harder and harder.

I do believe our world could actually be in a state of balance, it’s just very hard to see.

I do think that there are people who do terrible things in this world and people who achieve wonderful things too. But I don’t believe it’s as simple as this. We can all make amazing contributions as well as behave in ways that are not good to lesser or greater degrees. We also have lesser or greater degrees of trauma in our lives which can make us behave in a variety of ways. I struggle when I see people condemned before their circumstances are fully understood. We are very quick to take on the role of judge, too quick, in my mind. We all play our part in adding to the positive and negative vibrations in the world and I would like us to consider this before bringing down the judge's gavel on others.

I believe, at a core level, we all want the same thing, we just express it in different ways and if we took time to take a step towards each other and find our common ground we would understand the others in our world much better. If we took time to empathise with people’s stories and rationals, we could find properties that would help us chemically bond far more easily than if we just remain in our corners, coming out to fight when we felt angered.

There is so much work being created by people who really understand how to make change, how to discover the power we all hold as individuals that can shape a world, create that beautiful Libran ideal, into one that allows everyone to have their needs met (when we truly understand what that means). This is something I really want to investigate more fully and will bring whatever I learn here over time.

I am, of course, only touching the surface of what needs to be said on this subject, but I do believe a good deal of finding the balance we desire in the world begins with doing the inner work. Can we learn to understand ourselves and our needs better so that we know what to ask for and also know when we are stepping into love and when we are in fear? When we close down our ability to see the other and are unable to find room for their needs in the world, we are in danger of creating as much dis-harmony in the world as those we believe are in the wrong. Righteousness is a precarious platform to put ourselves on. In order to remain there we can become single-minded, uncompromising and obstinate and often lose the ability to hear another’s plight and understand the journey that brought them here, in this place of opposition to us.

Personally, I struggle with the concept of the Western modern culture always being in the right when we butt up against others we believe are wrong. This feels far too simplistic when I see our society as a having an Imperialist, colonialist, racist, patriarchal and consumerist heritage, a mindset woven through all our veins whatever we believe consciously. I feel we all need to keep revisiting these concepts on a regular basis, whenever we are confronted by others in the world we are so sure are wrong. I am not saying that they are right, but that we should look to ourselves before we judge.

Once again, I am asking for people to take a deep breath, look a little closer at everyone’s story, our history and why we are at this time of such division. I, personally, don’t believe this polarisation is real, I think that we are just being drawn into this combative way of interacting because of the stress and fear we have created in our way of living.

Do we have to wait for the bubble to burst and for us to lose everything, or are we going to ease the transition and start choosing a different approach to life? Once again, the archetype of Libra hands us the baton and tells us we are the magicians of our own life, the Generals that can choose to wage war, fight for peace, or choose a higher road and look for balance and harmony, starting with ourselves. Then we can begin putting that out into our lives with the people we encounter daily and then start pushing that out further and further beyond.

Back to School

It’s been an extraordinary week, with change at the heart of it. We have seen an extreme change in the weather and a change in Westminster. Although I often feel that neither of these are important to my day to day living, actually they have a subtle but powerful effect on all our lives.

In this country, we have rarely had to worry about extreme weather conditions, yes we’ve had flooding and occasional heatwaves, but generally Britain has a temperate climate and for this I am very grateful.

Politically, also, I have been lucky enough to live in a society that is fairly open-minded and has been growing more so with each decade. However, it is important to recognise that in some ways, we have paid for this with our personal freedom, that is, if we have bought into the mechanisms created to temper this. I will explore these ideas more next month in my Libra blog.

Now this is all changing, and our outward view on life is becoming far more conservative in most areas of life. Brexit has curbed our ability to travel easily, our commerce abroad has been impaired and our view on immigrants has become harsher. Our new Conservative government, of course, reflects this and the irony cannot be ignored that this comes at a time when our immigration numbers are soaring and our employment sector is in complete disarray. The fact is, we need people to come and work here and yet we’re fending them off with our fear and inhospitality. 

I am keen to explore the idea that if we are concerned with what type of people we are attracting here, then perhaps we need to look more closely at why. Again, I might investigate this in next month’s blog.

As life becomes more challenging this is often what happens, we close ranks as a society and become more self-interested, nationalistic and fearful of those outside of our circle. Treacherous weather can challenge us in this way. It is something we cannot control and our patriarchal society is based on control. When we feel helpless we close ranks and the cycle revolves inwards. 

The archetype of the Virgo sign is all about initiation, preparation and purification.

I am interested to understand how this time of outward, physical growth has coincided and so maybe led to a psychological mindset that has become more inward-looking, more enslaved. I am thinking that if outer world view is changing, willingly or not, then potentially our internal landscape might be up for a shift too. If this is true then we will need to work hard to prepare for the path ahead. 

This is exactly what Virgo teaches. This is an invitation to get out into the fields, reconnect with Mother Nature and bring in the harvest, the fruits of our labour. It couldn’t be more perfect. Our need to consummate our relationship with Mother Nature, rediscover our power that she feeds us (but we have for so long cut ourselves off from) is long overdue. It is time to be the apprentice again relearn how to be in the world, offer our gifts and participate in a way that is sustainable and mature. We would do well to become responsible in the workplace, create businesses that are mindful of the Earth and leave little or no trace. 

We are being asked to develop a more adult way of working - as we have been behaving like teenagers for too long. It is interesting that the Virgo archetype also represents our sexuality. It deals with purification and preparation, and as young adults we are being asked to prepare for adult life and marriage. For me, marriage is about the inner marriage, a way of balancing the masculine and feminine aspects of ourselves. Sadly, this has become a battlefield for over a hundred years, though actually, internally, for thousands of years, and if we could look within to understand the inner battle and find our peace there, we might learn to reconcile this wound we all carry. 

It is a deep wound, which we carry as the head enslaved and negated the wisdom of the heart. The heart understands the nature of all life and its infinite nature; the fact that we never die. When we cut ourselves off from this wisdom we are left alone, abandoned and fearful. This begins and ends with our fear of death. We all carry the archetype of the wounded healer represented by the minor planet Chiron which is considered to rule Virgo in modern astrology. 

The time is ripe. If we choose this moment to go back to school we can prepare to move forward in a positive way, full of grace, both open-hearted and open-minded. This has never been more perfectly designed and created for our success. Transformation is not only possible but happening right now and I am ever hopeful that you long to be a conscious active part of it? I do.

Shining like the Sun

photo Mark Brookes

We have certainly been experiencing the fullness of what the Leo archetype invites us to embody this time around.  I have been writing my blogs for a few years now and as the year turns I often worry that I will be repeating myself each time I put pen to paper, or rather finger to key.However, I always marvel at the subtle differences each year brings and sometimes the differences are not so subtle.

This is mainly due to the idea that I see our life journey as a spiral, ever since I began this way of interacting with my view of our world and universe. I sense that every journey, each birth, begins at a point in space and time and spirals out, turning with each yearly cycle. We return to the same place on the radius of the circle, but having grown and experienced another year with each orbital return, the spiral energy takes us further away from our start point. Each time we are raising our vibration, whatever that feels or looks like; the positive or the negative.

This year, the intensity of the critical times we are living in, has brought this archetype to an all time peak. The Leo lion embodies the self, the ego and like all archetypes has a shadow and a light aspect. The Leo that fully understands who they are and where they come from can stand tall and confident with their ancestors standing supportively on their shoulders. From here they shine and display generosity and kindness to all in their domain. They know that to give is to receive and that everything they need comes from within, there is no limit or shortage.

This Leo is a king/queen in all the best senses of this word.  The Leo lion that embodies the divine masculine so beautifully lives within their society as an individual that shines so that the community can shine as a whole. (The community is represented by Aquarius, its opposite sign on the wheel.This is how we create balance.) 

This is my idea of utopia. 

When the opposite is true and ego is cut off from a greater understanding of itself, isolated and fearful, then the self is diminished in every way and the need to keep everything as close as possible, for fear of losing the little we have, becomes the mindset. The king/queen needs everything around themselves to feel safe and validated, so words like sovereignty become all important and generosity is only possible to those considered to be kin. This word is a moveable feast, it can expand and contract as our ego can. Kin can mean just our close unit family or expand to the family of the whole of human kind. The choice is ours, as is our choice to be in shadow or to step into light.

When I saw the news filled with the fires that were creating a state of emergency in this country, it felt like the call to action was encroaching ever closer. The sun, our archetypal father was and will continue to use its power to bring the point home to us until we are willing to see. Fire is a life saver and a killer, the choice is ours. If we will not respond to the gentle nudges, the lighter touch, then the darker energies will have to find a way to get through to us in ways that aren’t so pleasant.

Ironically, the shadow often seems like our only option when we are scared or feel we have limited resources. Sadly, this is hard and painful road is often the one humanity takes. 

It is the road we are currently on as a society and I count my blessings daily that though I am on this journey too (it is inescapable whilst living in this country at this time), I do not have to buy into the fear or the unhappiness it can cause. However, I do have to recognise that while I am here and experiencing this process, I feel the need to take responsibility for the negativity I will be holding. No one is outside the circle.

There is much beauty to be experienced still and this becomes more and more important to connect with if we are to create a society where everyone is welcome, with a seat at the table and an equally full plate of food. In this place everyone is served and all serve.

What many don't see is that part of the fear is a fear of power, power that is good, that is filled with love. To embody the Leo energy truly we would do well to understand that power must come from love, just as love must come from power. Both these words contain both strength and humility in the same measure. We have forgotten this, the words have lost their true meaning and worth and we suffer the consequences. 

I was inspired to write a line in a song a while back, (sadly I can’t remember where the inspiration came from) it goes;
We help the child who fears the night,

Who helps those who fear the light.

While we are blind to the fact that nearly all of us hold this fear within, and so constantly recreate it without, we will never choose to do the work necessary to overcome the fear. This needs an awareness that will only come if we are pushed to see the dystopian path we are on and our part in upholding it. We will see more clearly if we stop looking at the physical world we are destroying and spend a little more time connecting with a world that lies within us all; a world, and a version of ourselves, that has infinite patience, positivity and love for ourselves.

We are all powerful, strong and unconditionally loving, more so than any of us could possibly imagine. Let's rediscover this.

Learning to Feel Everything

I am writing this on one of the most important days in our political times. A day when, I have just heard it said, our government has reached a moment of disarray never before seen in our country. And what surprises me is that people seem surprised, as if they couldn’t see it coming.

As always in these moments I like to take a broader view and look back to what brought us here. Personally, the only positive I could find as we moved towards Brexit was that the situation might get so bad in this country, it would force us to wake up to reality; the reality of what we are doing to our world and how absolutely unsustainable it is in any shape or form.

Big changes are needed and they will not happen easily. If we don’t choose the change the change will be forced upon us and it won’t be pretty. Brexit, I hoped, might speed up the process, rather than having to go through a prolonged agony, make it short and sweet.

Either way this is going to hurt, hurt us where we most feel it and this month the archetype is where we feel everything most keenly.

The archetype of Cancer, as we travel around the year is the first sign that deals with the emotions as it is the element of water. It is also ruled by the moon, our Mother  and so takes us on journey of feeling into our family, and what that means as we connect to our ancestral line, our roots and culture.

Since my awakening, I have enjoyed looking at our place in the universe by using images, it simplifies my tendency to over complicate things and can be a lot of fun. One image that always comes back to me is the concentric circles and joining TreeSisters and seeing these as rings in the trunk of a tree brought this home even more. 

These circles can be used in all ways of seeing the world from the tiny to the vast. We can view them personally in our own individual chakra system as they expand out from our body and we can experience this as a mirror in the way the planets revolve around our sun. They are all interlinked. We live in a multi-dimensional world and can choose to move energetically in and out of these circles depending on our openness and the choices we make.

We can also look at this image and take an emotional view; how far can we extend our ability to love. This is different for everyone and depends on so many things but it can be simplified if we look at where we stand on the love to fear ratio. The more we are open to love the further we can expand this energy into the world and obviously the opposite is true that if we are feeling more fearful then our energy is contracted.

Cancer is symbolised by the crab and this shows us another way of how we deal with our feelings of love or fear beautifully with its soft underbelly showing our vulnerability and its hard shell being the protector. 

For me, the problem starts when we see being vulnerable as negative and being the protector as being good. Then how we view and deal with problems in life becomes way out of balance. We are a society that has forgotten how to feel, which has what has got us into this crisis, I believe the only way out is to find our strength through feeling everything. (More about this in a future blog.)

I see our culture as it journeyed through the centuries and how at each juncture we have chosen the route of fear most of the time (the post war creation of the welfare state was one of a few exceptions) and until we break out of this cycle our decisions are going to remain based on keeping everything close to our skin, holding only those near to us as important. The more we fear life the more we want to protect just those in our tight family circle (a family circle can be whoever we feel most bound to, at home, work or play) and see everyone else as dangerous. This means as our view becomes more and more imbalanced and dysfunctional, we create an over exaggerated idea of our own self-importance.

We are seeing this today with our soon to be ex-Prime Minister clinging on for dear life to his status and delusional belief in his self-importance. The mirrors are all around him, whether he is seen to be behaving like Trump or even beginning to mirror his adversary, Putin. who has seemed to become his single focus. Once again, going back to the concentric circle imagery, he seems to be capable of only reaching into the first of the circles, where he finds only himself and his main opponent, who is, of course, also, himself. This inner conflict is something we all have to battle with, but only the few get to turn these into real war-games.

If it wasn’t so important for our country’s welfare it would be a beautiful play. However, if we can see it for what it is we might take the metaphor to understand ourselves a little better, for he is only mirroring this painful state of being in us all, and choose to grow from it.

It is my belief that we can only step into the next important stage in our journey as humanity when we can include everyone in our circle, when we expand our love into the most outer of our concentric circles. Then we can also make the shift together without pain or fear. That is my vision; maybe it's yours too?

Dropping In

Life has got busy again, the sun is out and I feel that everyone is charging around hoping to fill every moment with wonderful things. Well, this is the time for it. This month’s archetype is all about the busy bee pollinating and communicating, using the air waves to get its message out. And we are reflecting this as humans, we can’t help ourselves, it’s the law of nature.

So how do we do this without driving ourselves into overload or using it as a distraction for what we really should be getting busy about. Filling our lives with joyous things doesn’t necessarily make us feel happy if at our root we are distressed and troubled. Unfortunately the times are getting so critical that anxiety is becoming more normal and managing this is going to be a real need. Our attempts as a society generally to deal with this isn’t cutting the mustard and avoidance tends to the chosen route instead.

One thing we would do well to be aware of is that the ruler of this astrological month of Gemini is Mercury. He is known as the trickster, the fool, and is happy to turn our world upside down in order for us to ‘get it’. He was the only Greek god that could travel between the worlds. What he is really doing is being the go-between, the communicator between the higher and lower realms, whether that is our internal realms or the external world. It is up to us how we work with this.

My journey for the last few years has been into the shadows, discovering the collective trauma in my ancestral line, that makes up who I am. It is in-built into us at a cellular level, and even if we think we have had an easy life as an individual, it doesn’t take much investigation to find difficult stories lurking in the lives of our forefathers. If we haven’t had an easy life then we know exactly where to look. We can ignore this at our peril.

If we refuse to connect with our inner or higher selves and block our ears to the growing feelings of unrest that are bubbling up inside us then we will remain ungrounded and have no support system to guide us through the troubled waters we are entering. We can always receive help from those around us, but there is nothing like being connected to our own personal strength and wisdom in these times.

I am going to spend my time this summer doing very little, as far as is possible, rediscovering the inner stillness I had before I started this journey. It brought up a lot of pain and sadness for me and most of it has been absorbed by my body; this is what we often do. This is not a bad thing, it's just part of the process and to stop there would negate all the work I have done. It is important to see these journeys to the end and not get distracted by 'shiny things'!

I am hoping that Mercury will be with me, laughing and joking, as he helps me connect to my inner guidance system, find a little more of my joy again (I never lost it but it sometimes gets buried!) and my peace of mind, body and spirit.

I hope this resonates with you in some way.

photo Mark Brookes

 

Enough is Enough?

When I launched my book in Pisces, my intention was that it would be birthed into an energy of expansiveness. I wanted it to be like a small drop in the universal pond that could slowly ripple out into the world bringing whatever healing and effect was needed. 

That was my intention. Sometimes intentions take quite a while to pan out, as I realised that the day I had chosen - because it was near my birthday and was within the realms of possibility as far as the publishers were concerned - turned out to be the day we went to war. That was not my intention! However, I know the universe works in mysterious ways and it is best not to question events that are far bigger than, and may seem to conflict with, our individual paths.

As we arrived in Taurus, my intentions for this month was to slow down and be in tune with Mother Nature. I was overjoyed to see my garden in glorious abundance. This is our second spring in our new house and the fruit trees simply exploded into blossom. It is very exciting. As I continue to expand my desire to connect with Mother Nature I couldn’t wish for a better environment to be in.

Interestingly, I realised that the more I connected the more I began to feel the grief of growing up with a lack of connection. I grew up in a city and I was never curious enough to pay attention to nature or ask about it and of course, I was oblivious to the lack. My education began slowly in adult life. Better late than never, I say, but the void inside me that I am trying to fill sometimes feels overwhelming and the task impossible. Other times I know it is simply way overdue and I just need to let go. At brief moments in my life, I have let go and the sense of reconnection was so beautiful it was life-changing. It is the beacon that lights my way.

With a background of personal abundance in an interesting balance as Covid shut down a lot of my work, I feel I am being asked to evaluate what abundance really means. In my little world all seems well. Yet, when I raise my head above the parapet, at the world beyond, the threat of war escalating out of control is slowly looming on the horizon like a dark cloud.

Where does this sit inside me? As we step ever closer to a shift in consciousness where we may choose to rise out of the mindset of control and aggression, what are we going to choose? At the moment we are choosing a life based on a constant need for more, to fill the hole that disconnection creates inside us all. Although I may speak the words of peace, what energy is residing inside of me? I know I have to keep doing the work of finding harmony within so I can put that out in all areas of my life not just what I appear to say.

This feels paramount and I don’t know of anyone who can honestly they have completed this task. 

The closer we get to events that seem terrifying, the more I feel we are teetering on the edge of a shift, a rebirth. I don’t know what the future holds and part of me feels, or maybe hopes, that it won’t be a specific event but more like a gradual dance of the shadow and light that we will create. We are all the choreographers and I know what I want my dance to look like, do you?

However, we are eight billion all making our individual choices and what we choose is completely in the balance. We have seen this in the UK with the Brexit vote being so close, France also.

I believe the UK voted out of fear and is now feeling the consequences and we are going to have to learn the hard way how to steer ourselves back to a way of living with love in our hearts. This begins with the light and dark being in balance, in harmony with itself. When we choose to remove the judgement then we can lift ourselves out of the illusion of separation and into the uniting, blissful energy of love.

This is the time to start, when Mother Nature is inviting us to lie in her arms and be embraced, to feel her love as she breathes out everything and more than we could possibly want. When we learn that we are all of the same source and remove the idea of competition and turn it into cooperation, when we discover that less is more and that the world has enough to satisfy our needs but not enough for our greed (words of Mahatma Gandhi) then we will start to shift. Then we will stop choosing war and learn the way of peace.

 

A is for Aries

And here we are back at the beginning again, the turn of wheel, as it spins once more heralding the Spring Equinox, the Pagan New Year. 

This represents the beginning of all things; the new year, the birth of the human life, indeed, all creative journeys.

I love this time of year when the buds are bursting into view, the energy is powerful and vital. It is concerned only with its purpose, a singular mission, rocket fuelled by that burst of inspiration. Here, there is no room for judgement, self-doubt or fear. When rooted in Mother Nature as all of the natural world is, then the act is simple. However, when we are uprooted, disconnected from Mother Nature, like many people living in our modern world, then we come into being without the love and support of the universal love and are born into fear.

Our Western culture has its roots in the Old Testament, whatever your beliefs or non-beliefs. As a collective this is our oldest story which most of us are brought up with. You would have to work quite hard to avoid it entirely, and if atheism is your chosen path you wouldn’t have to go back far in your lineage to find ancestors who truly believed. This is all part of what makes us who we are. We can come into life believing whatever we feel inspires us, but deep in our ancestral DNA these stories pervade our subconscious and our mindset, whether we like it or not.

I have been exploring this over the last few years and this has brought me back, time and again, to an image, the image of a tree. I find I cannot escape it, for it is the embodiment of all that we are and all the journeys we have taken.

I see our journey starting in the roots, in the trunk of the tree, connected and whole in our understanding of the world and our part in it. This is represented by the Garden of Eden. 

As we believe we were thrown out of this place of love, of oneness, we began a journey built on trauma and shame. We felt abandoned, separated from our home, our hearts and this separation created our new reality, steeped in duality. This was a journey that created conflict within, as our heart was separated from our head, and our head, or rather our ego, lost the wisdom of the heart and began to think itself superior. This is also represented by the masculine over ruling the feminine. - It is important to state that neither is good or bad, right or wrong but when we fall out of balance we can become judgemental. - In this way, we have lost our ability to live in right relation between the two.

As the centuries turned into millennia, the conflicts within continued to manifest the conflicts without and soon we moved from the trunk of the tree into the initial three branches with the three Abrahamic faiths and then with the conflicts within these faiths into the many branches and twigs. Soon the battles between race, the different religions, and sexes found their way into communities and even families until we have more people living alone than our society or our sanity can handle. 

Here we are, living as the very leaves on the ends of the branches as far away from the root as we can possibly be. Our inner conflict has created an ego so fearful and fragile, so stuck in its righteousness and self-belief, it becomes increasingly hard to  conceive of trying to reconcile some of the mounting issues with the ‘others’ in our life, who may be many and growing. 

It seems to me, we are standing at the top our castles, looking at other cultures who might do things very differently to us, feeling greatly superior and that our way of life is completely normal. As other cultures seem to become more extreme, I ask, isn’t that because we are sitting on the opposite side of the see-saw. As we teeter, either at the top of the see-saw, or on the tips of the branches waiting for the fall (excuse the pun) I wander which way we are going to go. Are we willing to recognise the position we are in and stop pointing fingers at others, believing ourselves to be completely in the right or are we willing to climb down off our pedestal and find a more harmonious way of existing with others in this beautiful world while it is still beautiful?