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This bubbled up during the\u00a0last\u00a0solar eclipse, which occurred in my twelfth house where my natal Pluto resides. It came out as a letter to my\u00a0former selves. When I was 17,\u00a0 I\u00a0lost\u00a0everything and being stripped to\u00a0my foundation radically shaped me. Pluto is the blowtorch-wielding hand\u00a0of fate. I believe the recent wildfires of Northern California, those who\u00a0lost everything, brought this up for me. \u00a0I am sharing this with you because I think it is honest and ultimately encouraging. We can always start again.\u00a0Today, I\u00a0have everything I ever wanted\u00a0-far more\u00a0than I could envision at 17.\u00a0Twenty-five years later, I am still\u00a0discovering Pluto’s “hidden treasures” in my\u00a0soul\u00a0-spiritual gifts\u00a0gained from that period.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n You wake up one morning to discover\u00a0the world is not the same as it was yesterday. The rules have changed. Life was once solid, predictable, wooden-like, sometimes boring even, but today you are swimming in an unfamiliar sea. Uncertainty rules the day now. You reach out to grip onto something, someone, a hand to hold but only panic grips your heart back.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a new day, a morning unlike any other you\u2019ve ever known. For now (and for a very long time to come), every morning you will awaken to feel too vulnerable, naked and afraid. You are uncertain you have what it takes to make it in this new world, a world where everything you once knew so well, everything you relied upon, has turned to dust.<\/p>\n The rug has been pulled out from under you. How will you make it? How will you survive? Your\u00a0dream life has become preferable to waking. At least in dreamtime you temporarily forget your terror, only to awaken each morning with the cold hard fact of life staring at you: You are not in control. You will have to learn to submit to life, because Life always gets its way.<\/p>\n What do you trust when the landscape has become as foreign as a new country? At first you resist everything. You become Medusa, turning everything and everyone you see into stone. Terror seizes you from within, and you turn it outward, your stony gaze rendering life into death, your rage and pain a destructive force that you had no idea was within you. You have become a\u00a0pariah, you want to hide. People are afraid of you. Those you once loved, and those who still try and love you, no longer recognise you. You no longer recognise you.<\/p>\n Each morning you awaken, wondering if this will be the day you die or you live. Wondering who decides, wondering how…how you will live in this new reality. You wake up again, and again, each morning the now familiar\u00a0terror, each morning the pain rising like bile in your throat, the nausea, the fierce desire to hang onto any scrap of control you can.<\/p>\n You burn. You don’t know what it means, but you’re on fire from the inside. Rage. Anger. A fierce sense of injustice. A need to blame someone. Who? Your skin is inflamed. More anger. More rage. Nothing makes sense. You are the\u00a0wildfire, burning in front of you.<\/p>\n Yet the Sun won’t stop rising.\u00a0The bed is solid and here. The familiar urge to pee is predictable at least. You awaken, because you can, because you\u2019re not dead yet, and because one day you decide that you have nothing better to do than to see how this\u00a0story unfolds.<\/p>\n You are told\u00a0this thing keeping you here is called courage. Though it feels like anything but. You are still very, very afraid. But the decision to discover what happens next holds, and the mantra \u201cthis nightmare\u00a0I\u2019m experiencing must mean something I can\u2019t see right now but will understand later\u201d begins -a ballast, an anchor to what you don\u2019t know. You no longer believe in anything. You are still waist-high in muddy fear and confusion, but yesterday it was up to your neck and filling your lungs so you couldn\u2019t breathe. An improvement.<\/p>\n It takes a very long time to come to terms with this loss, far longer than you believe you\u2019ll be able to tolerate. You no longer have friends. Some were too fearful\u00a0that what was happening to you could happen to them. Others\u00a0moved on with their own lives. You no longer have a family- at least not the one you used to\u00a0recognise. You no longer have a home. That place doesn\u2019t exist for you anymore. You no longer have your vibrant health, nor the energy to do what people say must be done. You\u2019ve lost everything. You spend a lot of time crying, lost and in denial.\u00a0The\u00a0day you begin to accept\u00a0your new reality\u00a0is\u00a0as sad and terrifying as it is liberating. You realise\u00a0you still have a heart, at least, beating wildly for air, and maybe that is enough.<\/p>\n In rare moments of oxygen you start asking questions. They are big. Why is this happening?<\/em> is the biggest and it goads you to read books, seek out teachers who may know the answer. This question eats at you for years, gnaws at you like a cancer, until you discover there is no answer, you abandon it and move onto others. You blame your self for a long time\u00a0-had you been stronger, smarter\u00a0or\u00a0wiser your life wouldn’t have burst into flames.\u00a0It is not your fault.<\/em>\u00a0You make discoveries along the way, as if this question were designed to lead you to other places: Astrology, spirituality, mysticism, healing. During\u00a0which time you are introduced to\u00a0the radical idea that you chose to\u00a0experience this\u00a0adversity (you reason,\u00a0if this really is true, it was a moment of dire misjudgement on your part).\u00a0And your search for answers turns into a life. Your search for answers to this horrible black hole in your soul distracts and brings you comfort, until it becomes your salvation, and your soul itself. The search becomes the truth.<\/p>\n You start living your life from the inside out. Eventually,\u00a0questing becomes more important than understanding “why?”, and\u00a0you learn\u00a0that you can survive without\u00a0stability, money, love from others, your body’s reliability\u00a0or even a guarantee about\u00a0who you will see when you look in the mirror. There are no guarantees. You wonder how you will survive this brand new world.\u00a0Over time you discover you have internal resources you didn\u2019t know you had: Persistence, a stubborn ability to tolerate discomfort, ambiguity, confusion and pain. The sheer act of defiance to go on when nothing of your former life is left. This is more valuable than certainty. When people say\u00a0“what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” you want to scream at them: Step into my shoes!\u00a0<\/em>One day this phrase\u00a0will no longer sound cliche. You are becoming.<\/p>\n Of course you don\u2019t realise it yet. You are too blinded by the fear to see, too in the middle of your own rebuilding to be able to step outside of it. So, dear child, just for this one moment I want you to step back and glimpse the view I see from above. You. Glorious you. A phoenix burning… then rising from the ashes over and over until it becomes second nature. Daughter of the High Priestess, Goddess of Questions and Answers, you will someday make\u00a0this seeking\u00a0into your\u00a0vocation, your calling. You, a woman more dedicated to the art of becoming than anyone we can see from here, will hold the light up for others during their time of darkness. You will walk with them into the dark, take\u00a0their hand and say, I’ve been here, too.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I want you to know this\u00a0– from your Future Self. I remember every tear you wept, every lesson you paid for in blood. Nothing was lost. Yes, the world will fall again. Nothing lasts forever. Friends leave. Loss happens. Change comes like waves of anxiety. You learned to stand in the center of who you are, now knowing that\u2019s the only solid ground you have. New lessons will come\u00a0because\u00a0Life will always get its way in the end…learn to bend like the willow.\u00a0Control is futile. So is insisting on\u00a0THE answer, or\u00a0needing to understand why. Life is not black or white, dear one, and when you insist that it is you will always suffer. The truth lives in shades of grey.<\/p>\n Yes, you will feel <\/em>destroyed again. But you cannot be destroyed. You are eternal. When you forget this, go outside and stand in your garden. Feel the air\u00a0on your skin.\u00a0Let your puppy\u00a0lick your face. Allow life to show you its generosity… in giving so much more than\u00a0it takes away. Trust the beating of your wild heart as you do the rising Sun. Live from inside. Here.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This bubbled up during the last solar eclipse, which occurred in my twelfth house where my natal Pluto resides. It came out as a letter to my former selves. When I was 17, I lost everything and being stripped to my foundation radically shaped me. Pluto is the blowtorch-wielding hand of fate. I believe the recent wildfires of Northern California, those who lost […]<\/p>\n
\nWho do you turn to when your guides have fallen, your Gods forsaken you?
\nWho do you become when you look into the mirror and see a stranger looking back?
\nWhat is solid and real in a world where nothing is solid and real anymore?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n