This question has been popping up a lot recently. Clients, friends, talk show guests. We are clearly between jobs, between identities, between worlds. This is the Liminal space, much like the cocoon stage in which the miracle of transformation occurs. It’s a place of powerful potential, a space where magic happens.
The word “liminal” means threshold. We stand at the doorway to the future. We know we cannot go back to the way things were because that world isn’t viable, but we cannot yet see the future. We can’t know the end result of this metamorphosis and we haven’t yet developed our capacity to handle uncertainty. We have been trained to avoid it. We have been trained to trust our minds to know what’s going on and where we are headed. This lack of knowing has produced a collective angst and we’re all seeking resolution. So we’re asking “What should I do?” We want to hasten this process – change jobs, find a new relationship, join a cause. This is old paradigm thinking. It’s actually asking “How can I control this process?”
The paradox is that we can’t control it – we can only learn how to let it happen. Transformation isn’t something we do. It’s something we experience – a time of dissolution, a time of not-knowing. A time of surrender. The new paradigm question is “Who am I really?” Seeking this answer opens us up to the world within, where the real action takes place.
These are deeply spiritual times, despite the appearance of mundane conflicts and global crises. We can think of the problems of our material reality as grit in an oyster shell. It’s the oyster’s job to create the pearl.
So what do the Heavens have to tell us about this liminal time?
Neptune and Jupiter
At the heart of our metamorphosis is Neptune. If you recall, this planet is exactly opposite its natal position in the USA chart. Our spiritual nature is being awakened. Neptune acts by blurring boundaries, opening up unlimited space, triggering our longing to connect with what is sacred. The truth of Neptune is that all reality, seen and unseen, is One. In our separated state of consciousness, we perceive everything as disparate, disconnected, a belief solidified by our Newtonian and Atomic physics. Through the pursuit of the basic building blocks of nature, scientists found themselves in a fuzzy matrix of continual transformation. What we call particles morph into energy and back into other particles. Life on the inside of the invisible world is in constant flux and everything is connected to everything else. Concepts like time and space are meaningless. There is only the Now and perpetual flux. And we are inextricably interwoven with that All.
Who are we? Each of us is a precipitated quantum of Spirit. And contrary to our beliefs and the feedback of our senses, we are not alone. We are not even separated from one another. We each live in the mini cosmos of our making, but we have unseen roots in One Source. Realizing that, experiencing the truth of that, is the Great Awakening happening around the world.
The pandemic gave us the physical time and space to disengage from our daily routines and take a good look at ourselves. It has brought us into the Liminal wherein lie all the creative resources from which to fashion a new world, but first we have to let ourselves be transformed.
Neptune has timed his opposition to form a supportive context for us to wake up to who we are. And Jupiter, the #1 god, has entered Pisces for two months to lend his exuberance, his optimism and faith, his passion for truth and vision. Pisces is the realm of dreams. Neptune and Jupiter are “co-rulers” of this sign, meaning their influence is powerful in Pisces. Jupiter will retrograde back into Aquarius and then return to Pisces in December. We are getting a preview of how 2022 can be if we dream big enough dreams.
Venus Rebirth
Last Saturday evening Venus made her heliacal rise in the night sky, completing her “Transmutation” phase and initiating a week-long rebirth phase. Venus has been invisible since January 31st when she disappeared from the morning sky. Her passage through the Underworld is another metaphor for the metamorphosis we as humanity are undergoing. The myth of Inanna or Ishtar reveals what this Underworld process is all about. It begins with stripping Inanna down, removing all attachments to her former life, deleting her old identity until she stands naked before the Gates of Hell. She faces her essential self and the “sins” of her life. She actually dies and is reborn and makes the climb back into the light and a new life.
I was hoping to see Venus, this symbol of love and beauty, make her debut, but it looked doubtful. There was a thick marine layer on the horizon and the sunset was unremarkable. Miraculously, about an hour later, the layer had thinned and there, just above it, was Venus. Higher in the evening sky was the Crescent Moon cradling Mars. All three together in the night sky symbolize the union of polar opposites within our consciousness. The Masculine and Feminine archetypes reflected back to us beauty and harmony.
On Monday the 17th Venus joined the Moon’s North Node to seed a future with more love and compassion. She is about to cross the USA Descendant into the 7th House of relationships, helping us focus on improving our relations. How can we be more loving and understanding? How can we shift the adversarial relationship we have with life and all those diverse others?
The stage is set for spiritual insight. “What should you do with the rest of your life?” Learn how to be your true self. Focus on awakening, practice living in the moment, be as present as possible. Trust your instincts and intuition, your inner goodness and wisdom. Open your heart, exercise compassion, heal your wounds and find ways to liberate yourself from the past. Ground in your body and become an open channel for evolution – allow Soul and Spirit into your life, imbuing every moment with a rich, wondrous unfolding. And dream a future of love and peace and reverence for all.
We have focused for millennia on DOING. Now is the time for BEING. When we surrender to the truth of who we are, a more beautiful world will flow naturally through us.
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