Birthing Ourselves into the Light

I really need to breathe, and push, and believe,
Because now is the time to give birth.
It’s up to me, not he or she,
To bring my light to earth.

~ Kaypacha

…every new moon is a rebirth of the light.

~Chani Nicholas

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Just last month it seemed like we were at the light at the end of the Covid tunnel and now we are pulling back again. In the middle of summer here in Santa Barbara, as the Leo new moon gives us a fresh start, expanding out in the sunshine, moving and stretching our amazing bodies, Chiron, the wounded healer, has gone retrograde and appears to be pushing us back inside to take another look at our wounds.

Have you had any major old/recurring wounds rear their ugly heads at you recently? Things you thought you had already dealt with or wished you were done with?

I can only imagine that most everyone is experiencing at least a bit of frustration. As my own world was expanding with the warmth of the sun, I unearthed toxic family dynamics that showed me how fortunate I am to be able to find to balance after losing my composure and pitching fits over my lack of control (and the lack of communication) in a situation…how did I imagine I have control over anything?

"Chiron’s placement in your chart may indicate a bruise that keeps swelling up, or a knot you’re perennially engaged in unpicking. It can also highlight a place where you feel like a maverick or outsider."

~Chani Nicholas

I’m honoring the journey of someone I hold dear, releasing the idea that I had been “helping” them and watching them attempt to take control of their life in a manner that involves memories and ideas of our interactions that are not the same as mine. Venus in Virgo is reminding me that while I want to nit-pick and be critical and wish things were handled better, what’s most important are everyday, helpful acts of service to those I love. If I say what I want most is what is best for someone I love, I then have to let go of my own petty-ness and just love them and ask what they need.

“Focusing on our relationships can be fulfilling, but one of the most important things you can do [during Venus in Virgo] is nurture the relationship with yourself…If you pour love into yourself, it'll be easier to pour into others.”

~Elizabeth Gulino, REFINERY29

And thank god/goddess for my early morning walks, anchoring me in the rhythms of life; the ebb and flow of the waves silky on my feet, the caress of the wind on my skin and the warmth of the sun affirming the strength of the connection to my own body and its wisdom are bringing me back into grace.

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This body that is the product of billions of years of evolution and the perfect vehicle for my spirit, put together by that spirit at the moment of conception from the two strands of DNA that came together to create it. The Strength card represents that wisdom, that honorable relationship of the first sacred mystical marriage of body and spirit. What an incredible blessing to have a body. The Strength card also represents the moon in Leo, giving us the opportunity to look at who we are and who we want to be and pushing us to truly shine our light in the world; be who we came here to be and nothing less. Leo loves the spotlight!

To paraphrase Mary Oliver from her Wild Geese poem, I do not have to be good, I do not have to repent on my knees for miles in the desert, I’m just letting the soft animal of my body love what she loves. Finding my way back to being resourced has been so helpful as I witness the journey of my loved one as she struggles to make sense of her terminal illness and her life and the possibility of her death through the fog of pain medication and the disorientation of her life changing on a dime and having any semblance of control pulled out from under her.

When my head can no longer make sense of the situation, I find it easier to metaphorically hang upside down and watch it all unfold through my heart, knowing that there is a birthing in process and I can no more rush it than I can successfully rush the bursting of a chrysalis into a butterfly or pull on blades of grass to make them grow. The hanged man put themselves up on the tree of life, for a purpose, and will bring themselves down at the right time, just as the butterfly breaks through the chrysalis at the perfect time for the sun to help its wings dry

And what is being birthed? It’s a whole new understanding and perspective of myself. You see it is my mother who just may be in the midst of her end of life journey, a right of passage we must all eventually go through, which is growing me up in a powerful way. And it also happens to be occurring during the tail end of my Chiron Return, there is healing taking place here that is generations of wounding in the making and it is unconditional love that is anchoring in like never before. And boy is it necessary and a relief to feel that much love during this experience, especially from myself. And it’s so essential that I bring myself back to unconditional love again and again in this process. It’s easy to be pulled by the mind and the ego and the wounding of the past and such a balm to wash it all it in the flow of love.

I understand now, how one can imagine, during difficult times, life would be easy to let go, but when it gets near the end, the urge to hold on, to grasp at the blessing of life is strong. Everything is turned upside down again for us, from a thinking perspective, just as, right before our birth we are upside down in the womb, ready to head out. At birth we are assisted by the womb itself, contracting and pushing us out, an exercise we initiated by emitting the hormone to induce contractions while still in the womb. At the end of our life we are turned upside down by the loss of the hard-won control and logical thinking, it’s as though everything is loosening, letting us go, rather than holding us too tight.

The mind attempts to hold on while the body essentially releases its hold on this reality we call life. The juxtaposition of how we come into the world as opposed to how we leave it is so fascinating.

Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
To get through this thing called life
Electric word life
It means forever and that's a mighty long time
But I'm here to tell you
There's something else
The after world

~ Prince, lyrics from "Let’s Go Crazy"

Either way it comes down to surrender. And we surrender our bodies and release our minds' grasp on this world towards the end, just as our mother surrendered to release us into the physical world, to breathe and to push, and to simultaneously let go and release us from her body in the beginning. We must release our hold on the Earth at the end. Surrender is the active power of the Divine Feminine, equally as powerful as any building or hunting or doing that the masculine can accomplish.

Here is Persephone, the Empress. Six months of the year she is the Queen of the Underworld, assisting the souls on their journey from life to death and the other six months of the year she is Spring personified, birthing new life into the light; in both her roles she is the light at the end of the tunnel. The journey between those worlds must be a fascinating one. It’s a journey I’m witnessing my mother go through, in and out, up and down, along with moments of clarity and delusion, and she appears unaware of which is which. But really, how do we know which is which anyway? When will she allow herself the relief and the grace of the release? It’s her journey, and she will know when it’s time, just as the Hanged Man knows when to get down from the tree.

“Love needs to make sense and have a purpose with Venus in Virgo. Virgo is an Earth sign, which is sensual but also quite practical.”

~CafeAstrology.com

So how are you doing, dear hearts? Are you able to anoint your ailments, bathe your wounds and ease your struggle in the ever-present flow of unconditional love from the holy earth and the high holy?

When you’re at your wits end, try it; imagine the flood of love flooding up into the soles of your feet from the energetic umbilical cord you are tethered to this earth with and raise your face to the sky to feel the unconditional love of the high holy, streaming down, like the warmth of the sun or the blessing of rain. It’s always happening. When you realize that we are conduits of that love, the literal acupuncture needles of love connecting heaven and earth with the unconditional love streaming from our own hearts; everything changes. We are the love we have been searching for all along.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

~ Gandhi

“Shine on you crazy diamond…
…Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light…
…Come on you raver, you seer of visions
Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and SHINE!”

~Pink Floyd, lyrics from "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"

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