Oh sweet Jesus. Before I even get started, I just want to say, it's been a really rough road this last several weeks with Mercury Retrograde. Go easy on yourself and don't attempt to rush forward now sooner than you are ready to go. The integration phase of this retrograde is with us until November 2, so we're barely just coming out of it. The message here is to pace yourself and go at your own speed. A lot has come up with this cycle and myriad of truths have been revealed, externally and internally, and it's quite the task to digest. We are charged now with the job of sorting and organizing. What stays and what goes? Many rats have come out of the shadows and so we're in detox territory as we move forward. It's going to be really uncomfortable to just plow ahead and not deal with what's in front of you. And if you go too fast, without digesting and assimilating first, you risk recreating what you just left.
Last month I talked about the energy of the warrior. Well, we've been through the battle now and it's time to clean our armor, dust ourselves off and take inventory of what's happened. Have you seen some really painful things about yourself or others that you now have to contend with? Have you garnered information about next steps, where you want to go, and what you see yourself creating? In order to create that new thing, we have to let go of what we were holding. Major Marie Kondo, inner feng shui time. But also, as we come home from battle, the house is a mess, our wounds need dressing, our relationships need rekindling and repositioning, our inner selves need tending. So there's some overwhelm in here too. It's like seeing it all at once and having to decide where to place your focus first. So again, pace yourself. Rome wasn't built in a day.
One day at a time, one foot in front of the other — and maybe a bath first.
The image I was shown this month was a rainbow pinwheel spinning to release all that no longer serves. It's the toxins we didn't know were wrecking havoc, but now that we're aware we can tend to it. The lymph system needs purging. The toxic relationship patterns need flushing out. The job needs adjusting. You won't have to look far to know which is which. It's the obvious stuff right in front of your face. This is the time to break up with people pleasing and set a course that is designed by YOU. It's deep investigation work. Who were you before you were born? What did you want to be when you were a kid? What did you want to create? It's tender to access these places because there is grief buried here. The ways we haven't let ourselves be free. The baggage we've carried for others, even if they didn't ask us to carry it. So there is heaviness here, but it's towards freedom. When we face what is holding us back, we liberate that energy to be used for something else.
Another energy that lives within this image of the pinwheel is PLAY; the playful energy we held within us as children. The way we freely played with no sense of time. The way we got lost in whatever we were enjoying. We're being called to this again, without regard to whether or not it makes sense to the adult world. Start the company, quit the job, plant the garden, dance in the rain, stare out the window, play with paint, lay on your back and gaze at the sky, let yourself explore it all this month. It may not be time to build it, to put the new dream into action (or maybe it is), but this is the month to brainstorm and let it just be fun. We've had enough heaviness to last a lifetime. It's time to kick off our shoes and just play with reckless abandon.
When we allow ourselves to play in a non-linear, circuitous way, magic happens. We see things we didn't see before. Memories get unearthed of who we use to be and what we dreamed of creating. We need this playful child to remind us what freedom looks like. Most adults have lost this connection. Children would say we are boring. They find amusement in playing on the floor with a stack of bowls. They can make a game out of anything. We don't play nearly enough. And so this month we must incorporate fun. Let yourself be guided by your inner musings, your inner knowings, not what the outside world would have you focus on. Put the phone down, turn it off even, and let yourself putter. It's one of my favorite ways to spend a rainy day. Let yourself be guided. Follow your hands. Watch where they want to go. The body knows.
There is a pain point here as well, I would be remiss in not mentioning. The territory of freedom is hard-won. Yes it sounds blissful and magical to be free, but freedom isn't free. We have to work for it. We have to dedicate our time to it. We have to dig down deep in our bones and commit to it. With all this unearthing from October, there is the pain and humility of eating crow. We have to see where we let our freedom go; where we let ourselves be enslaved. Maybe you thought you were more evolved than you now realize you are. We have to learn to tolerate what we've seen about ourselves and others. This is underworld territory. The dark night of the soul. Releasing what we thought to be absolutely true in order to reveal what is true, or is becoming more true. This is the month of Halloween, after all. It's an ever-evolving process and there is no final place we reach and never grow again. Life becomes death, and death become life again. Letting ourselves flow with the river comes from the work of shoring it up to flow. The dedication, the grit, the commitment to self. It doesn't come for free, but it is possible. This is the merging of the masculine and feminine. The doing and the being. You are the hero of your own story.
Things to focus on this month —
Tuning Out to Tune In — Boundary your time for play and puttering. It's the both/and. It's structured time for doing nothing, no thing. And I find in that structured time, for supposedly nothing, I get more done than with a task list at hand and a deadline to meet.
Play — Let yourself get lost in the goofiness of play. Be silly. Laugh. Dance. Blow off traditional work. Pick an unsightly task you've been putting off and let it be fun. Crank up the music and enjoy it.
Detox — If ever there was a month to detox it's now. Clean up your diet, dump the sugar and alcohol, exercise, clean the house, get out in nature, get rid of everything that is not serving you to make space for what wants to come in to support you.
Watch Frozen. Listen to Beyonce's Freedom.
Oil of the Month — Freedom, but if you have Joy, Celebrate or Humility, those will pair nicely.