SUMMER SOLSTICE

June 21

Beginning of 6 month Feminine cycle (June 21 to December 21)
2nd half of summer (June 21 to August 5)
Element of Fire
Sharing, community, pleasure
Transformation

June 21 Midsummer is reached - the longest moment of light in the year, the shortest of darkness. Thus ends the six-month masculine cycle of outward motion, external focus and outward growth. Beginning today, our energy will begin to slowly move back towards our own center, putting an end to the explosive growth we have been experiencing since May 5.

Each seasonal change, there seems to be a collective pattern that many people experience. This season is no different. There is a sense of being stuck, of no movement, of wallowing in a pit of quicksand, unable to get out. I hear from many people a lack of drive, a lack of will, exhaustion, frustration, a sense of being held back. I myself have been experiencing this as well, so I went to the ancestors and asked them what was going on.

"You have to let go of being rock stars" they told me.

"Rock stars?," I asked in surprise, "what does that mean?"

"Each of you has had some experience in your life when you were on top", they told me. "You were the best at something, or were in the right place at the right time, or living a life that gave you tremendous satisfaction. You learned to identify yourself with this place of being on top - this ability to make things happen, to be a master of creation, to believe that you had things figured out.

The world is changing rapidly now though, and in order for you all to weather these changes, you have to let go of what once was. You have to be able to let go of the person you thought you were, so the person you ARE has room to blossom. All of these events in your life - your joys, your triumphs, your sorrows, your bitterest disappointments - all of these events have conspired to create the person you are ready to become. If you are stuck in the past, trying to recreate the life you had, the future person, your bigger and brighter self, cannot come in, and you will doomed to repeat the cycle of loss over and over.

Understand that the losses you have been experiencing are temporary and perception based. By this we mean, the things that you were taught to value are suddenly shifting to a different position. What the culture considered meaningful and worth striving for is now changing dramatically. The losses are simply loss of one way of life so another, more magical life can appear. To be part of that changing cycle, you will all have to let go of the rock star of the past. Your future will hold a different person than the one you have been. If you open yourself to embrace the future YOU, the abundance you create may take your breath away."

It took me several weeks to really understand their answer. A rock star? Was I ever a rock star? And looking back over my life, I saw that I HAD been a rock star at various times. I was well known, had a good reputation, and worked in fields that were glamorous and exciting. My identity was greatly shaped by those experiences. For years after I left these worlds, I continued to believe that I would once again become a rock star. Facing that belief and allowing myself to release it was perhaps one of the harder things I have done in my life. If I lost that identity, if I was never again to be more than I was today, could that be enough?

What I know about emotion is that great change is always preceded by great grief. It took many weeks for me to grieve the loss of the parts of myself that I had so admired, and to accept the parts of myself that I considered just average. I journaled, wept, watched sad movies, wept more, spent time with nature, hibernated, wept more, and there came a day when I felt I had reached completion with the process. And lo and behold, the very next day a miracle happened. I choose to keep my miracle private for now, but it showed me that the grieving process of letting go of WHO I THOUGHT I WAS, or WHO I HAD BEEN BEFORE was essential to create room for who I have become.

If you have lost belief in yourself, or lost your job, or had ANY kind of loss, allow your emotional body to heal you. Crying opens space. When you cry, you honor the thing that has gone, and you create new space for something new. When we repress our grief, we set up a magnetic attraction to the thing we are grieving, and we may find ourselves with more and more loss until we explode with our grief. Being proactive allows an opportunity to grieve with consciousness, respect and restraint. It makes the process manageable. If we could all grieve the loss of the life we once knew, perhaps a miraculous new life hiding around the corner might suddenly appear. And how much fun could THAT be??

Blessings!

Cat

While Fire can provide us with many things, it can also destroy. When we are thoughtless about our use of resources, we contribute to environments susceptible to wildfires, both figuratively and literally.