How was your January with those two intense eclipses?! Just saying, I wasn’t ready for them at all!
My life went to utter pieces, multiple times, throughout the first month of 2019, and I’m still recovering! Like finding myself at Shadow Bootcamp without having ever signed up (well, consciously, at least)!
I’m making peace with feeling periodically broken and embodying an ongoingly wobbly, undone space for now – it seems par for the course with moving to the other side of the world and turning one’s life upside down.
I take heart from the imaginal cells (AKA mush) of the dissolved caterpillar within the cocoon. I know I’m not alone, and I’m 100% sure the caterpillar feels as confused and discomforted as I do!
I’m motivated to write today to offer my love and solidarity to you, especially if you’ve found yourself in similar terrain…
And I want to celebrate the structural changes we are making to align with our inner Truth, our soul’s call, our gut intuition – whatever language works best for you!
As we emerge from January and those two intense eclipses, what structural changes have you made to support your life, your heart, your nourishment, your passion? Let’s celebrate them!!
And how are you ‘priestessing your life’ in response to what your life currently holds? What practices bring you back to your good ground, and how are you making room for these practices in your day-to-day life?
A Pivotal Book
Capricorn – the sign of the New Moon in January this year, and the first of the two eclipses – is all about structures, boundaries and containers of all kinds. Structures relating to time, relationships, ideas and power; bricks-and-mortar buildings, but also the walls we build within ourselves to keep us safe.
Dismantling these walls, when they have outlived their uses, brings us to shadow work– navigating our attachment to, and shame of, these internal shapes, beliefs and habits that have defined us to date.
After a seriously depressed New Year’s Day, I started reading Debbie Ford’s book The Dark Side of the Light Chasers: Reclaiming Your Power, Creativity, Brilliance, and Dreams.
This is a powerful invitation into shadow work: owning our disowned parts, alchemizing our shame and following it as a pathway home.
I highly recommend this book to anyone as powerful support in dark times. Working through our shadow is the only genuine way to not repeatedly fall into the hole of our painful perpetual dilemmas over and over again. (Preachin’ to myself, here!)
This is work we all need to do, so we can reduce how often we inflict our pain and judgment onto our marriages, children, friends, workplaces and the world around us…
As Debbie says, “When we make peace with ourselves, we spontaneously make peace with the world.”
Structural changes
Several significant structural shifts have emerged from this tremendous stirring of my inner ‘well’ (and I wonder if any of them mirror your own?):
A Room of My Own
I arranged that the default be to sleep alone, rather than with my husband. This way, the choice to be together is deliberate, and my bed and bedroom can function as a physical and energetic haven in a context where my marriage often pushes me to my edges. Probably not a forever thing, but certainly a nourishing spaciousness for right now, and we have spent many nights happily and deliciously together, as well as grateful nights apart…
A Personal Altar
I created an altar on the floor of my bedroom. I loaded it up with *all the special things* that anchor me and remind me of how I want to be. The invitation to ‘priestess my life’ is in my face, every day! And I need it there, everyday, to give me a leg-up out of the negative mental holes I periodically find myself in…
A Daily Prayer Practice
I instigated a daily prayer practice, moving around my altar, reading carefully-gathered words that remind me of how I want to think and feel.
A New Seed-Planting/Intention-Setting Technique
I planted my New Moon ‘seeds’ in a way I’ve never done before, inspired by J. Earl Shoaff. A direct antidote to my New Year’s Day despair. There’s enough personal growth for a year in this one 40-min talk – have a listen to him!
A Brand New Journal
I started a brand new journal, and am making it a practice to read over the previous lunar month’s worth of musings, to make sure I’m integrating the lessons and actioning change as and where I can.
I’m also re-reading journals from two and seven years ago – seeing what Mars and Saturn were stirring up back then, how it mirrors my current experience, and what I might do differently this time! (Mars has a 2-year cycle, Saturn has a 28-year cycle that can be distinctly felt at each of the four quarters, ie. every seven years, hence the ‘seven-year itch’.)
A Set of Dark Moon Retreats
I booked eight retreats around the Dark Moon throughout 2019, most two nights long, some only one night. It makes sense to create space at the time of the ‘moonth’ when I most crave space. I am hoping to avoid unnecessary conflict and angst with this deft manoeuvre, as well as gifting myself with Solitude, which is a huge nourishment for me…
A Gathering of Priestesses
What’s the collective noun for a group of priestesses?? A spell-crafting of priestesses? A prayer of priestesses? But I digress… last month I booked my place at the International Priestess Convocation in Crete in 2020, the first one in 5,000 years! Would you care to join me??
A Role Released
I passed on a huge work role I was carrying, knowing that it was too big for me to hold. I was feeling awful about not being able to do it well, and this realignment feels positive for all parties involved, because it means this good work will ripple out further and wider!
Art classes
I signed up for both watercolour and acrylic art classes, kicking off in April!
An Emerging Voice
I started voice coaching with an amazing woman who is like the Oracle from the Matrix – equally mind-bending! They are voices lessons, but really they are breath lessons, ‘how to say yes to the universe’ lessons, ‘how to take up space’ lessons, ‘how to be grateful, and live long and happy’ lessons.
I know they will be life-changing – the first session already was! And I know they will stir up every unresolved thing within me… I am so grateful to this woman who can See me bigger and fuller than I can see myself, at the moment. I aspire to her vision, and she makes me feel incredibly hopeful.
Integration
I’m calling 2019 The Year of Recovery and Integration, akin to making time for the essential practice of shavasana at the end of a yoga session – aptly named ‘Corpse Pose’!
Yep, sometimes it feels like I’m dead, but I’m not.
Lying in rest, resting in peace (haha!), just Be-ing, allowing my body to receive and alchemise all that has happened, allowing myself to Arrive following so much change, stilling my way into the present moment. A posture of receptivity and rejuvenation.
I know i am somehow getting ready for 2020, which already feels like it will be BIG! Do you have this feeling too?
The United Nations has named 2019 The Year of Indigenous Languages.
How is your 2019 shaping up? What name would you give yours?