I’ve been feeling all the feels this week.
I’ve been feeling so much that it sometimes takes me the whole day to remember who I am underneath all these layers of emotion, to remember that I am - fundamentally and always - okay. It’s a little like waking up at the bottom of the ocean where things are deep, dark and monumentally mysterious. As the sun rises, I open my eyes to a distant light that guides me to swim slowly to the surface. I stir more courage into the sea with each stroke, emptying my lungs into a trail of bubbles. And as I ascend, I calmly reassure myself that a full breath awaits my eventual emergence into the air above.
What I feel, more than anything else, is grief. And it isn’t confined to any particular life event, it’s the kind of grief that bleeds into every experience, a succulent smorgasbord of sadness. I feel grief for the people who aren’t here for me to hug; I feel grief for the carefree weekends of my 20s; I feel grief for the dazzling careers I never had. I even feel grief for not winning the lottery (yet!), and I most certainly feel grief for the ways of life our world has known that are now disappearing before our very eyes.
I love astrology because it really helps me to know that I’m not alone. I’m feeling these feels in the heightened drama of eclipse season, a time when we are called to close the emotional doors to our past and open the gates to our destiny. And I’m appreciating, perhaps for the first time, that the grief I’m allowing myself to feel is the hand that closes the door on suffering. Grief is necessarily focused on something that isn’t here - a lost love, a faded memory, an abandoned dream. So I know that the only way to move forward is to start being with what is here rather than trying to be with what isn’t.
And when I do this, I feel whole again. My mind remembers that everything - including me - is made of energy that cannot be destroyed. My gut remembers that the fullness of Our Universe exists right here in this moment, and I’m part of it. My heart remembers that love never dies, that life is an endless river of opportunity. This is the healing magic of acceptance, illustrated so beautifully by these crystalline images from my favorite water researcher:
I’ve been reflecting a lot about water these past few days, which of course makes perfect sense with next Tuesday’s upcoming Lunar Eclipse in oceanic Pisces. Water in astrology represents our emotions, our subconscious, our intuition, and Pisces is the place where water moves in waves. Experiences wash in and out of our awareness, and new perspectives take root in the fuzziness of the shoreline.
Lunar eclipses happen at Full Moons, and they bring our bodies to high tide. We find ourselves flooded with with feelings, like long-trapped emotional energy is being drawn into our bloodstream and pumped straight to our heart. Lunar eclipses love to overflow our carefully constructed boundaries, and this time we may be even more prone to burst our banks as the Moon swims with ever-expansive Neptune. Neptune also reminds us that there is ultimately no separation between you and me, that it is the same point of light that makes both of our hearts beat. And as this eclipse aligns with the hungry North Node of the Moon, we now find ourselves pulled into the dream we share - a world where we all know how loved we are.
Down here on the Earth, this can be an awful lot to take in. There is no shortage of suffering in the world, and everywhere you look (including on the inside) you’ll see someone who doesn’t fully believe they deserve love. This has brought me to tears so many times this week, and it has also crystallized the value of self-compassion in my heart. Saturn’s trip through Pisces has taught me that self-compassion is a way to reassert my boundaries with love, that I can pull myself out of the ocean of emotion whenever I need to. I can learn to be gentle, kind, and understanding to the singular drop of water that I am, and I can know that this is what I’m sending back to this magical planet we call home.
So if you’ve been feeling the feels, too, I want you to know that it’s okay to be kind to yourself. You are doing your best, and you deserve to be loved just as you are. It’s time to let go of all the reasons you don’t believe that, and it’s okay if if you sometimes feel overwhelmed by what rises to the surface. And if that happens, take a moment to soothe yourself. I invite you to do a heart hug with me whenever you like, it’s amazing how much a simple act of self-compassion can change.
Love you to the Moon and back,
Patrick
PS: If you want some help releasing stuck emotions and clearing out old beliefs, drop me a line anytime or make yourself an appointment - I’m here. ❤️