Finding your way through loops & trials: The courage to keep climbing
The energy is shifting as the light is slowly coming back. (Dare I say slowly in rainy, gray Portland). Thank goodness. It has felt heavy and cloaked. Time seemed to slow down. Maybe not the pace of life but perhaps in reaching the clarity that you seek, or having that next step become obvious or maybe it seems to be taking longer than expected to get “there”. I have felt like the path has been more of a series of loops than a direct path. And after some of the loops I wonder, now what was that about? Anyone with me?
Along my looping, I have been contemplating and sitting with death-literally & figuratively. I have recently followed a calling to volunteer with hospice and it has been teaching me so much about the rich process of death. A process let’s be honest is not the most popular conversation starter. Yet, I am quite grateful for this unexpected gift. In sitting with death, I have learned to value life and each moment as a sacred, precious and a profound gift. Watching people die truly gives you a different perspective of the gift of the time we have to live.
I think many of us are experiencing death in many different forms as we have been ending some collective cycles. Maybe like me you are ready to see some things go and others you are shocked or perplexed as to what happened and why. Death is a mysterious guide as I am learning through my patients.
One of my patients, 95, just lost his wife after 70 years of marriage. He commented “I knew this day was coming for so long. I know I would die and yet here I am and I am not ready. I don’t feel prepared and it is so uncomfortable and yet I have nothing to do but face it.”
So, how do you relate to those raw endings, the uncomfortable void space between the endings and the new beginnings? Especially when that pause seems like it lasts a beat or two too long? Or when the path seems to take you down twists and turns that you could have never imagined or ever prepared yourself for?
I hate to admit it but I have wrestled with the intensity of feeling defeated, frustrated and stuck. Been there? You know when you feel like life gave you the “trials and tribulations” subscription rather than the “blessed and favored” one? But, what I cherish so much about astrology is that it can be a tool to seasonally update and refresh our perspective and invite us into a new way of relating to what is.
Today is a new moon in the sign of Capricorn, and “the mountain goat” has a message for us I do believe. Capricorn energy can be felt as: Determination. Commitment. Patience. Resolve. The goat cannot stand on the top of the mountain without facing its share of challenges. It knows that for many aspects of life there are no shortcuts or cliff notes. Some endeavors take time. With time comes the wisdom to know one self, to learn our weak spots-where we give in and give up, and to cultivate the self-discipline to show up for it all with an unwavering commitment to the process.
Our emotions at times will want to sway us to sit on the sidelines and ruminate about our losses, the trials of having to show up and climb each day when the weather isn’t perfect or the cheering squad has disappeared. But the goat is not affected or strayed by this momentary experience of doubt because he knows who he is and what he wants and he knows what must be done day after day to achieve it. He must show up. He must be available for what he knows is his path and his legacy that only he can do.
There have been days recently, when I did not want to show up for myself and write anyway, or teach a class or be “seen”. I could think of a million excuses and yet when I fail to do so, I suffer. Because showing up for me lights me up. It affords me the satisfaction of being in the right relationship with my spirit and north star. The shadow side of Capricorn is isolation, the “shoulds”, and a sort of depression due to the lack of connection to the integrity of our internal drive & compass. And when I retreated I felt a coldness to my light, a paleness to the colors around me and the disconnection to my part of the whole.
This is not about work and effort to please others or to seek validation or approval, avoiding rest or doing anything as a means to an end or in an effort to be “ a good soldier”. . This is about being true to you. When I have those defeats, the long pauses and I want to withdraw, it is not anyone I fail but my own self-respect. I owe no one but myself.
Capricorn reminds us that we all have a place in the world. Your place may leave its mark by your job, your side hobby, or how you interact and relate with others in your sphere in you being your best self. It does not matter how influential, how public or the means you choose to show up. What matters is that you show up fully and rise to the occasion for which you have been soul summoned. You do the work that your life calls for and when those challenges and obstacles arise and that you persevere and in doing so you allow yourself to be witnessed in your accomplishment of this spectacular feat. The mission of being YOU.
The invitation of this full moon if you take it is to stand in unwavering support of yourself and your dreams.
What allegorical mountain are you poised and ready to climb for your own satisfaction and legacy?( Because you know if you don’t when you face death you would regret it.
Where is life is calling you to cultivate the self-discipline to show up no matter the back story, when your faith is tested or when fear is pursuing you ? How will this make you stronger for the task at hand?
May we collectively honor our deaths and endings, lick our wounds, kiss our tender parts and face the mountain before us. “It’s a new day. I can. I will. I must.”