I am working on transcribing and editing a Soil and Soul Dialogue that I had planned for the new moon in Leo today. Particularly because it’s a conversation with my beloved brother and he has his moon stationed in Leo. It felt like poetic timing. But life doesn’t always care about our cute schedules. Our bodies don’t always cooperate with our good ideas either. I’m halfway done with the piece. I’m stating it here as an announcement, so that you are now my accountability buddy. A witness to my good intentions of having that conversation ready for you in two weeks. I could have been done sooner had I not been struck by an unrelenting exhaustion in the past weeks. Exhaustion and immense distraction by one of those rare and precarious (precious) human experiences that we just can’t write about too soon – but which is, nonetheless, all-consuming. I don’t know about you, but life has been demanding a lot of presence and energy and acceptance from me lately. I see many people around me also going through big shifts in their lives. People are moving, putting houses on the market, having babies, beginning new relationships, ending relationships, changing jobs, all the while beholding a world crumbling before our eyes, everything seems to be up in the air and in major flux.
So, at the proverbial feet of such wild intensity, I am granting myself the mercy to switch some content around. There’s a magical Story From the Field ready for the new moon in Virgo. I had planned a small reflection on turning 40 for the full moon in Aquarius on August 9th, just a few days before my birthday. But since Leo season has already started and since I have already been reflecting on turning 40 for a while now, I’m sharing this piece first. This is the dark moon soil from which a new decade begins to sprout. It’s a big deal to me, this new decade. Especially after living through the last one. So. Here’s to the last new moon in Leo in my 30’s. And I sure lived my 30’s at the proverbial feet of a wild intensity. At the mercy of forces far above and beyond my comprehension.
When I turned 30, I had a pretty sweet and solid life. I was married to man I loved with my whole heart, was co-raising a glorious boy as a very dedicated stepmom, was living in our adorably eclectic Southern Illinois dreamhome (which, yes, happens to be a humble double-wide trailer, because the layout of those simple structures is spatial perfection), lived with 2 cute cats, beautiful plants, had herbs growing on the back deck, and was about to start a 2 year paid MA program with a teaching assistantship at the local university. I was the kind of 30-year-old that made granola in the oven, baked bread with caraway seeds, made stuffed animals and little clay dudes and snack plates and homework around the dinner table. I had learned the ropes of a quaint and quirky domesticity that I genuinely loved. It’s not that I didn’t struggle at times, because there were definitely difficult parts, but I could envision my future and it made sense to me. I could imagine growing old within those parameters, and finding contentment and fulfilment there.
Within 2 years, that vision got shattered in way I had never seen coming. I managed to finish my MA degree by the threads of some dutiful perseverance, but not long after, the whole fabric of my existence came completely undone. These were forces outside of my control. Demons from other people’s pasts. Tidal waves of dark energy that suddenly crashed into the shore of my existence until I lost the strength to hold on. I lost all of it. Partner, stepson, home, cats, plants, future plans, all belongings, every carefully construed identity marker I held dear crumbled to pieces. And I was nobody. Except for my breath, the skin keeping my bones together, and an inconsolable grieving heart, there was nothing left of me.
The domestic family-oriented thirties of my dreams made way for something infinitely more wild, intense, transformative, and expansive. I cried for years. I mean that literally, that’s not a dramatic hyperbole. Took on the torch of the psycho-spiritual warrior to illuminate, and wrestle with, my completely disoriented predicament, my entire past and every ancestral lineage, every trauma and treasure; no stone was left unturned. I raised my arms up to the sky in one gigantic existential question. Sometimes two middle fingers too. What do you want from me? To some God I wasn’t sure I could believe in. What do you want from me? If this is some sickeningly cruel divine intervention, then SHOW ME THE WAY.
And I was. Shown the way. With a grace that still brings tears to my eyes when I recall its tender guidance. Inexplicable mercy. The trenches were deep and immeasurably painful, but I never felt completely abandoned. I was ruthlessly abandoned by the circumstances of my life, but not by life itself.
From the depths of pain, new heights were created with an equally powerful force. I became a mountain climbing expert, metaphorically speaking. Oracle cards and mystic poetry became road-map, synchronicity became compass, an intricate path-finding tool during my solo-journey through the valleys of the underworld, and the peaks of human euphoria. This was necessarily a solitary journey, but I was never alone. A wealth of collaborative abundance emerged, through music making, writing, art, dancing, traveling, beautiful new friendships formed, familial healing was made possible. Miracles happened.
I built my 30’s from scratch. I got very very very creative. I lived in strange semi-lawful housing situations, traveled to festivals in the desert, did lots of therapy, danced at a thousand concerts, cried hard, laughed hard, with friends or alone under the full moon, I rested on the forest floor, ate the therapeutic mushrooms, made love, made peace with my sensitive nature, made a deal with my anarchistic mystical heart. To be free, to encourage liberation in myself and others, to illuminate the path onward.
I’m turning 40 mid-August. These days, I sing in several bands. I write long love letters to God. I take pictures of flowers and leaves a lot. I get to witness and support beautiful human beings on their journeys through and out of the fields of existential overwhelm. I live in a communal house with a bunch of artists and musicians in the city where I was born. It’s absolutely not the life I had envisioned for myself. It’s not better or worse; it is rich, riveting, and fully aligned with my spirit. It is mine.
Not too long ago, my entire communal household went to an illegal rave together somewhere in the woods. Laughing on the bicycle ride over there, some 30- to 46-year-olds, donned in glitter attire on rickety bicycles, greeting the unknown well past our preferred bedtime. Somewhere under those trees, between the laser lights and deep bass lines, another miracle unfolded. The miracle you can’t write about too soon, so I won’t yet – because of it’s precarious and all-consuming nature. But, in line with the spirit of this past decade, I couldn’t have seen it coming…
From the sweet dreams of a well-adapted 30-year-old who hadn’t seen anything yet, to the open hands of a wildly free 40-year-old who has seen enough not to make a single prediction. I don’t know where any of it leads. I have no expectations for this new decade unfurling in such a tumultuous time. I have only one vow: To experience it all. To say, into the ether, with love, with an open heart, with reverence for the inexplicable mystery: SHOW ME THE WAY. And, then, simply, to follow.
Oh, P.S., I got off the phone with my transatlantic stepson yesterday after another long conversation about the state of the world, crypto currency, and our shifting decades, smiling. He has continued, throughout his teenage years, with unwavering determination, to stay steady in my orbit, on his own accord. He never let me go. A grace for which I have no description. Just tears of gratitude. I couldn’t stay in our shared home, in his country, but in the sturdy ether, I never let him go, and never will. And every time he calls, I pick up, and I am delighted to hear news from his intelligent, witty, and sharp-minded evolution. To bear witness to, and affirm, the empathic sensitivity he sometimes hides from the volatile world he’s inherited, knowing all his gifts will serve him well in his new decade. He turns 20 next month. And we’ll continue orbiting in each other’s universe. Some things remain after the fire, like Love.
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