We are just getting to the end of the current eclipse season but possibly still feeling the effects of our moon mother’s shifting. Mercury retrograde is upon us as well. I am a novice when it comes to astrology but I feel the fits and starts as energy bursts and then fizzles, calls for release and then asks me to grow and build. Stretches me until I just can’t take one more thing and then provides uncertain relief. All this to say: when the stars ask us to, we have to be ready to let everything go.
Letting go was never my strong suit. I have fought long and hard in my life to cling to comfort. To stay within a certain range of knowing. To fall into the unknown felt scary, big and too much even with the golden breath of possibility showing off her playful, iridescent edges. To let everything fall apart? I would have never thought such a thing could be survived. And yet, here I stand in the rubble.
I remember one of the first moments that I chose to dive into the deep dark unknown and let everything crumble behind me as I leapt. I was sitting on my living room floor, a busy mother with a few moments to spare while kids were asleep or otherwise occupied. I used to use that time for meditation as a way to feel some part of myself even amidst losing myself in others.
I remember a vision comjng into focus in my mind, a picture of me standing on the soft bank by a deep and dark pond. It wasn’t quite nighttime, but there was no sliver of light in the sky. The water, sky and earth were varying shades of dark greens, purples and blues, and I could just make out the depths of the water. It was deep. Like a plunging hole down into who knows where. With my unremarkable human eyesight, I could see no bottom.
I felt as though I had a choice in that moment. I felt myself being compelled to jump, but a small piece of me remained stuck to the shore, not daring to move. There wasn’t some ticking of time. I had all the time in my life to make the decision, but my mortality meant my life eas certainly at stake.
As I sat with the vision, a courage began to rise within me. I saw the soft, certain ground beneath my feet. Something I had always been standing on. And yet the waters called to me, sang even, in an unstruck sound. Courage seems to be the thing that guides us on our path in the most intimate and loving ways, even though at the time it may feel like we are being forced to meet an uncertain (and sometimes unwanted) destiny. In an instant, and before I could stop myself, I dove. And that was it, the end of the vision. That was it, the beginning of something new and unfounded and completely terrifying.
By deciding to jump, I didn’t lose a thing besides the ground that I thought was keeping me safe. In reality, that ground was keeping me stuck in the muddy riverbanks of life. In that moment I let it all fall apart. It started a cascade of brave acts that I would never in my life think I was capable of. I came out to my family and friends. I began a painful and completely heartbreaking divorce process. I found courage hiding within parts of myself that I didn’t even know were there. And even though I let everything fall apart, I survived. And now, after a few years of sitting in the rubble and sorting through pieces, placing them into a new configuration, I am beginning to feel like I have my shit together. Most days. In fact I am stronger because this time I am completely unafraid to take the next deep dive when the waters sing again. Letting it all fall apart is to find the depths of beauty one can only experience when living a full and completely human life.
Wisdom Within Reiki and Nidra 