Well

Oh hey 2018. Fancy meeting you here. I know I switched up and decided to come through during the New Moon. My bad.  Me? I’ve alright. I’ve been running around trying and succeeding in catch every blessing that comes my way.

But when it comes to lessons so far I’ve got a whole to say.

I’ve witnessed those who study the stars share something along the lines of “this time of year is really hard for folks” for years. The holidays have only just now ended depending on your practice, and the Lunar New Year however is almost here. The weight and the challenges that are coming up right now, as a dear one recently shared, have an unbreakable link with the themes presented to us during the last Lunar Eclipse in August.

Remember that shit? I surely do because I was a mess. I was still trying to find a job, getting down to the last of the last of my savings, struggling to complicate what kinds of exchanges I wanted to participate in, platonic, romantic, etc. Yet I paused long enough, somehow, to think through the ways in which I wanted to continue to be in relation with other folks that walk among us currently.

Eventually, I was able to take it a step forward and understand how I could continue to be in relation with my relations that have become ancestors. Then I managed to go beyond that and envision the ways in which my relations of the future will receive these words and how my actions now will impact them greatly. My in-actions too.

I speak of duality often because understanding the polarities and complexities inherent in me has facilitated my ability to facilitate spaces for others. To show compassion for myself meant that I knew how to show compassion for those I held space for. Entering in 2018, I began to fully step into the light and offer my thoughts in the form of more concrete workshops which an overflow of opportunities and new communities. The work I had been doing in the dark throughout the year, but especially that Lunar Eclipse during Leo season, was now being heralded in the darkest time of year.

Here we are on the other side of that cycle, as the mirror of that eclipse draws near on the 31st. There’s a crew of folks in community, mainly fellow creatives, that are wading into their Saturn Returns. The next two and a half years are here to make sure that we hear the messages being sent to us and that we secure the bags that we have at our fingertips. If you’re like me and you have a strong Capricorn placement, or stellium, you’ve been enjoying this time of year on the low. Personally, it’s as if there’s another force out there cosigning on what I’ve been trying to allude to for a couple of months. To strengthen their foundations before the termites come. To childproof the home before they have to mother someone beyond themselves. To have contingency plans before the alarms are sounded and judgement comes.

The second I reached that stream of consciousness though, I realized that I had been placing that out as a mirror for others but had not paused along enough to answer those challenges myself. What it all boiled down to for me was around compassionate boundaries. Of understanding that no is a complete sentence.

But I still felt guilty as all hell when I had to name that I couldn’t stay on. That I could not continue to be a resource. That I had to rest and take care of my basic needs. At the same time I was showing compassion towards others in that regard, I wasn’t able to enforce that same boundaries with others. What is it about the ways in which we can be inundated with some experiences and relations and not drown, and then turn around and struggle in the same lessons with others? The lesson bares repeating as needed right? How is it that I can quickly say “I’m at capacity” in some cases and say “let me know what you need” at my next notification?

The answer, as messy as this is, is that at some level, we all have a knack to discern the ways in which messages we need to respond to and how we will choose to respond. The levels of discernment required to have compassionate boundaries is one that I’m still exploring, and don’t possess a full answer yet. What compassionate boundaries invoke in me are questions. Thoughts around how can we ensure that we’re healing and not healing? What does a practice of community care look like? Who heals the healer or who supports the strong friend without it being a loop of trauma or a feeling of being stuck?

We are not designed to be completely independent or alone, yet I fear and respectfully understand the demands of my own consciousness and what I need to do to maintain my own well as opposed to allowing for my own well to run dry. The duality that I embrace names that it took my well running dry on the heels of the New Moon, and as it fully landed, that I needed to name my needs and have compassionate boundaries with myself again. That I couldn’t be posing the above questions with integrity if I did anything less. That I had to continue to be explicit with the ways in which I journey into how I express my thoughts and feelings so that no one on this Earth could tell me that I wasn’t fully in relation with my whole self.

This is me digging deep. This is an invitation, as always, to meet me at the depths. A reminder to anyone that this finds that we are made of 70% water at all times, even if we feel as the last drop has been used as nourishment for someone else. That we have to continue to invite ourselves first, then others, to these braver spaces in the dark sides of our existence. To ensure that the wells are abundantly well.
 

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“we need each other. not just for primal, instinctual reasons, not just to build & cope & survive together (practices I was in after Puerto Rico was hit by Maria & then left to die by USA per usual). we need each other to teach each other. to show what love can look like as a myriad of expressions. to see what is actually possible & to learn what we need to move on from. nothing I have learned, nothing I am writing, nothing I have ever said is merely of my own origin. it is a web I am weaving from all the threads I have been fortunate to have access to. as is your existence. we are all weaving from the threads coming from other webs being or already woven. needing each other means being humble & less attached to our ideas of wisdom & our fear of the unknown. needing each other does not mean becoming invisible to dissolve into the whole but rather allowing yourself to be fully seen & seeing others.” - saltwater stars