It's Okay to Surrender// on Retrogrades
Originally published via Wordpress July 31, 2018.
It's okay to feel stuck or trapped or gut-twisted for no reason. It's okay.
It's okay to feel like things are happening so fast that you can't process or communicate. A lot of times it's natural to go down deep and explore the underworld of your life, your feelings, your practice. You have to get to those places through the stillness after chaos, through being forced to stop in your tracks of ambitiously pushing up and out and that whole ladder-scurry. And (as I was reminded today by my hubby) this is what retrogrades are for.
It doesn't have to be the worst week, and it doesn't have to suck or be all fucked up. It just simply is. It's a space and a time to just exist and reflect on your life and your path. This too shall pass. You don't have to have the right words. You don't have to convey everything you're feeling and seeing and thinking to the rest of the world, or to anyone for that matter. You don't even have to understand it yourself. This time is for you to dive deep or just sit on the surface with what recently may have bubbled up. I mean, it's going to happen regardless, so might as well give it the space it needs.
This total lunar eclipse brought about some crazy energy and kicked off a huge shift - a new page, a rebirth. Couple that with Mercury going retrograde right around the same time and we have some big, confusing things happening. Like, think all great and significant but at the same time all veiled with just-around-the-corner-cloudy illusion. For those who are super energy sensitive, you're probably feeling all kinds of topsy turvy. Personally, I feel a little sick to my stomach. Like being on a continuous invisible roller coaster.
It might be that I'm having trouble putting up energetic boundaries, absorbing some of the chaos going on around me. But my gut tells me it's because I'm secretly fighting this whole retrograde season. I'm trying to ignore the signs and push full speed ahead when everything in the Universe is screaming CHILL. It's that part that's like "Ahh! I need to write a blog post, make a video, rerecord a voice clip, clean out the back room, prepare for the yard sale WHY ISN'T THIS WORKING!" You know? Retrograde isn't bad or good; it's just a change in direction, and it just happens. It's actually supposed to happen. It's the natural order of things. So, it makes absolute sense that if we go against the flow, things don't go smoothly for us. (...in theory.) The problem is that because the affected points are our moods, perceptions, and emotions, when you're in the moment it's a lot a lot harder to put that theory into practice.
It's sort of like....you know when an anxiety prone pup in a crate starts working himself up and keeps barking and barking until eventually he works himself into such a frenzy that there's no going back and he's hurting himself on the door trying to get out? Yeah, it's exactly like that. The overdoing and the trying to free yourself ends up causing more damage than the whole damn thing would've done in the first place had you just been patient.
It's the epitome of fighting the flow. It's not trusting. It's being afraid your owner isn't coming back although she just went up the road to the grocery store. But you don't know; you're afraid. What if she's gone forever?
Same goes with us. When things don't feel right, don't flow right, it's so easy to forget it's just a moment in time. It's so easy to freak out and think that the peace and calm and balance is gone forever and it's your job to find it and bring it back. So you struggle against the flow and create unnecessary stress and pain for yourself instead of just leaning into stillness. Basically you make more of a mess. Ooooooh!
But don't worry. Order as we know it will return; all will be restored. This is a lesson I'm learning this go around, and I wanted to share it with you. Ironically, it did come in the form of a blog post, but not from the same frenzied to-do list. It came, rather, from a quiet place of stillness as I write in my notebook at work.
I'm learning to just accept and show up, to exist, and to release the need to always be in control. I thought it was so funny when I was expressing all of this to my husband today and he said, "You're being very masculine right now. Stop trying to control everything! Go with the flow; you need both." He was right, and I loved that reminder. We are a beautiful fusion, are we not? [Of both masculine and feminine energies] and sometimes it's nice to have a gentle reminder when one is taking over.
So I surrender. I'm leaning in.
Let 'er roll, Universe!
xo, Taty
PS// In contrast with the above image (shot by Derrick of BlackFoxStudio, manipulated by me), I'm pairing this post with another set of photos taken by Derrick. I stumbled upon the folder my chance, but they somehow capture the softness of stillness in all its beauty, doubts, and breakthroughs.
