The Deeper Thing/ Eclipse
In our paradigm obsessed with beginnings. Only light, and life. We have no real idea of how to do endings.
The symbolism of eclipses has so much to teach us. So much about the gates of life and death, shadow and light, endings and beginnings.
When we pass through an eclipse portal, we are always being asked to let go of something, so that something new can come in.
So often we have to grieve, not just our physical losses, but “the way we thought it would be”.
Sometimes it’s just true let go of a long held preferences so the universe can deliver the deeper thing. The thing that was meant for us.
We have all of these little quirks about what we think life should look like, and what it should have delivered already.
After all, we’ve done the work. We are entitled to the payday.
Our paradigm is transfixed on accumulation, not purging. Equal exchanges, not grace.
But endless ascent towards the light, is not how the universe works. Especially when we have a big mandate.
All of our attachments to the way we thought life should work are the very reason they haven’t.
And if we don’t acknowledge this, and spend the appropriate time grieving we won’t ever get the bigger thing.
Life is an unending series of cycles. Time itself is cyclical.
But if we get this next part, those cycles look more like an evolving spiral than retracing the same circle again and again.
I’m reminded of my own mother, and her journey to motherhood.
She had to let go of her preferences around what motherhood would look like, in order to finally become a mother.
She had to grieve the fact that she was never going to be pregnant and have a natural child.
When she did, the universe opened, and I came into her life.
She has a distinct memory of writing a letter to God. (A ritual)
Surrendering all of her preferences once and for all. And truly grieving her motherhood.
And not long after, the way opened.
What she did finally, was not just accept, but truly love her life exactly the way it was.
Along with grieving the physical loss of my son, I’ve had to grieve all of my preferences around having him. My identity around being his Mom (in the physical sense). The missing of his skin under my touch. What I believed I was entitled too. Even what I believe holidays should look like, and now don’t.
I’ve had to love it all. The loss, the pain, and the grief.
In a way, when I’m reeling against the universe, clobbering it with my preferences, what is really true is that I’m resentful.
Because this isn’t the way “it should be”.
And while that’s fine. It’s a stage of development. There is something really “grippy” and controlling around that particular orientation.
As much as I desperately miss my son, I still want to live. I value my life. And I want it to be filled with beauty. Not in spite of his loss. But because of it. Because he was beautiful, and we are still creating together.
There is so much less beauty on offer in a grabby resentful heart.
So I come back to principle of suffering vs pain. Suffering being part of a mental loop designed to punish me. And pain/grief being sourced in love. Part of the natural cycle of life and loss. Divorced from story.
I grieve and let go so that my heart stays open.
In the Norse Version of Mythology they also have the three fates that reside in the living waters at the base of the Yggdrasil. (Tree of Life)
The Norns who weave the threads of reality.
Past, Present, and Future.
Skuld, the future, is unknown. Blank. And she’s meant to be that way.
She teaches us that, Projecting our preferences forward, is not conducive to working in harmony with the future. It’s not actually in service to getting what is true for us.
We may get what we want by doing that, but it won’t necessarily be true. What is meant to be ours.
It’s when we’ve surrendered what it will look like. When we’ve “cut the cord” of our attachments AND GRIEVED THEM, that the truer, deeper, thing can come on line. In our openness. In our love of “what is”. Our love of truth.
Lunar Eclipse 16° Taurus November 8th
Art By Brian Smith
*I love this art: the man, not willing to surrender his perceived treasure, (attachment) even in the face of being devoured.
