Grip on tight, then let it go.
Resistance is part of the journey when we're about to cross a threshold in our lives.
“The common, ordinary death does not come as a surprise, even when it is the accidental result of a wound or the effect of too great an emotion, as was sometimes the case. Its essential characteristic is that it gives advance warning of its arrival.” - Philippe Ariès
Since my father died seven years ago, I have often thought about death - almost daily. The only word I had after witnessing my father die was beauty. There are still no proper words to articulate that moment: one moment here, another wholly gone, an empty vessel of what once was. During the first grieving moments, what helped me ‘process my grief’ was seeing my grief as Helen Mirren, which I called “Lady Grievana,” with whom I’d have periodic scones and tea ‘visits.’ In my imagination, Lady Grievana was part of a trio: Lady Joy and Lady Death. We wouldn’t be able to visit Lady Joy without visiting Lady Grievana. At least she served delicious scones with clotted cream and jam.
As for Lady Death, I envisioned her in this remote vineyard in the deep recesses of the Underworld, where in her vines, we’d see both the succulent grapes, promising deep-tasting wine, and the decomposing shrunk grapes strangled by decomposing leaves, with the life-force moving from one to the other in an endless infinity spiral: dead, alive, dead, alive. Lady Death was strikingly beautiful, and the quick glimpses I’d get from her body, hidden in her heavy black cloak, was vibrant skin shining alongside life and decomposition: maggots commingled with butterflies. Beautifully feared even by the gods who avoided visiting her at her vineyard in the foothills of infinity.
I also envisioned the current stuckness in fear of our times due to our fear of grieving. Our lack of tears, because we avoid grieving, was drying up the River Styx, and as such, the souls of the dead can’t move on. The ferryman, Charon, is stuck in a mudbank of the River Styx and unable to do his job. Meanwhile, the souls of the dead crowd the banks of the river, waiting anxiously to move from death to life through their journey in the Underworld. While in the upper world, we, the ‘live ones,’ hide behind our distractions and fear of the unknown, blissfully unaware of how much this affects the lemniscate of life and death.
These images were part of the flight of fancy that came to me while in reverie during the first year after my father’s passing. These images that rose out of my inner world were more helpful to me during the thick of my grief than grappling with Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief.
Right now, this theme is on my mind for a couple of other reasons, including my latest experience with plant medicine. The integration continues to unfurl.
Another reason I also think a lot about this theme is astrological, which I delineated in more detail in my video series: The Courageous Decade. The epoch-planetary shifts of this decade signal a new emergent truth, which is what myth initially meant.
So, looking at the world’s events now from a mythic perspective helps us see beyond the drama and not fall prey to the dangers of literalism and being possessed by visions of annihilation, all poisoning ingredients from fundamentalism - aka a lack of imagination.
One of the critical transits that kickstarted all of this was the conjunction of Saturn and Pluto with the added cosmic baking powder of Jupiter in January 2020. Since then, Pluto has arrived in Aquarius, with one last dip in Capricorn in the Fall; Saturn is stirring the depths of Pisces, showing us both miracles and where our illusions and fears are buried in our collective unconscious.
Saturn in Pisces feels like a further loosening of the foundations of many of our collective illusions and materializing, as is Saturn’s core job, what Neptune has been further dissolving since it arrived on its home turf in 2011. While Neptune dissolves, Saturn further reassesses. Before we can feel the bliss of surrender, we may swim with formless fears and anxieties that have been sleeping at the bottom of our oceans.
Neptune hadn’t been in Pisces since the mid-1800s, the height of industrialization, slavery, colonialism, the empire where the Sun never sat (British Empire), and also the stirrings of other transcendent and philosophical movements.
As in another level of this spiral, we now reckon with these themes. Right along with the return of the repressed compliments of Pluto, of that which is unhealed, unprocessed, and breaking through within each of us and the collective in our awareness boundaries.
I often tell my clients that whatever issue they’re struggling with is both individual and collective, and working on that issue will also help not only them but also the collective.
Even though dancing along life is Lady Death. Even knowing that death gives advance warning of its arrival, as was often thought by our Medieval forebears, we still resist it with all our might.
Resistance is part of the journey.
Writing this brings to mind my first astrology teacher.
When talking about Pluto, he said it would lead you to obsess over something, unable to let it go with all your might, only to help later you let it go.
Resistance, akin to boredom, as I wrote in a previous article, announces that we’re on the edge of the liminal. A certain death is at hand. We’re about to cross a boundary, to be met with varying degrees of disorientation, confusion, and internal/external disorder.
“Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt.
We experience it as an energy field…” - Steven Pressfield.
What could be resistance’s kryptonite?
The very thing it’s resisting.
What is its food?
Fear.
Resistance feeds on fear.
The first couple of times, journeying with plant medicine, I was able to let myself be taken by the wild horses of the transcendent. Any stirrings of discomfort, I breathed, and that loosened the grip of my fear. This time, I felt the claustrophobic asphyxiation of fear grip me from the inside.
Unlike my previous experiences of being able to surrender to what came toward me, this time, I was humbled by the fear of my own unraveling with death - my ego Self was freaked and overwhelmed by the sheer force of the experience of not wanting to release control.
While it made the experience more challenging, it was necessary for the peak experience of Pluto’s work: grip on tight, then let it go.
Whenever death is upon us (i.e., a relationship, a phase in life, a mindset, etc.), it’s normal to try to keep it alive because we are frightened of change.
Even if we know that all will be well in the ultimate end (perhaps after this iteration of life), still we are anxious and fearful.
But there comes a time when we need to allow the change to occur. We must learn to ‘hold on tightly and let go lightly,’ which is to care passionately about our ideals, values, and life, but we also need to discern when to release our attachment to what is now hindering our journey rather than helping us.
What could help us navigate these thresholds with more grace toward our resistance and fears?
How might we approach life’s changes with less freaking out but more ability to stay grounded when encountering these aspects of ourselves?
Ideally, we could prepare ourselves, but life doesn’t run on a train time schedule.
Plus, culturally, I feel we’re often unprepared at a fundamental level because we often know very little about basic aspects of ourselves, not to mention our inner selves.
We’re taught to look outside ourselves and forgo journeying through our inner landscape. We’re a culture of PhDs, magical technologies, and valuing material success, but populated by a lot of emotionally illiterate people. We’re a culture that creates poor ambassadors of the inner realms—no wonder we’re so unprepared to face the dissolution of crossing thresholds of change.
I’m definitely no expert, humbled as I was by this truth revealed by my latest plant medicine. And yet, I believe that even if we can’t do it for ourselves, we can serve as guides for others. What we struggle with is often the gift we can give to others.
Nevertheless, I can use what astrology can give me.
With Jupiter’s recent ingress in Gemini, we can take this as an opportunity to learn how to make connections, build bridges, and expand our capacity for understanding. Gemini is the realm of connections, and with Jupiter, we can take the opportunity (a Jupiterian word) to learn the bigger story, not get stuck in the weeds of data points.
This is an excellent time to dust off your student cap and get thee learning. Later this Summer and Fall, then in next year’s Spring, Jupiter and Saturn will be their square dance, their first since their union in December 2020. More on this topic later, but let’s say that their dance is a mix of good luck, opportunity, and relief, but also focus on the size of the canvas we’ve been given.
While Jupiter wants to have it all, especially in Gemini, Saturn reminds us that each of us has a canvas of a particular size to create. We all have limits to our capacity, and we can learn to appreciate the finality of a deadline to help us focus on what really matters: Lady Joy - the third sister in the trio of my reverie.
For now, I’ll leave you with no better example of Lady Joy than Julian of Norwich, an English anchoress in the Middle Ages, and her famous quote:
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Now on to you.
What have you been resisting?
What are you learning from it?
Let me know in the comments.
It’s lovely to hear about others’ experiences in these liminal times, as it gives us a sense of not being alone and that we’re all walking each other home. So don’t be shy! We’re in this together!
I need your help!
I’ve some ideas for some online workshops, but I’d love to have your input first. Below are three options to choose from.
For now, I’ll give you just the titles and see if they entice you, and once I count the votes, more information will follow.
So do me a solid and cast your vote!
Thank you! My Muses and I appreciate you participating in creative citizenry.
And if you need some help in making sense of a transition you may be going through in your life now (i.e., vocation, relationships, life stage), check out my Astro-coaching offers by clicking on the image.
