I have been thinking a lot about friends, relationships, needs and community in general. Maybe it is the residue from the Cancer full moon this month. Mama Cancer brings up what we need and how we need to feel loved, comforted, safe. Or maybe it is simply that so much of my life and priorities have shifted since I became a mother. Either way, relationships, how to be in relationships and what it means to be in relationships are on my mind.
Friends have always been one of the most important things to me. From an early age, I preferred my "chosen" family over my real family. I didn't come from a strict or unkind home, quite the opposite, but the Gemini in me sought popularity, new faces and socializing more than developing closeness with my kin. Even though that has changed some as I have grown older, seen the importance in my family and understand how different those connections are, my friends and community still ranked pretty close to number one on my priority list.
A lot has transformed since I got pregnant and even more so since baby was born. Suddenly, this new soul is number one and even that second slot seems miles beneath the first. I now understand that maternal emotional Cancerian calling in a way I never imagined, fathomed or even desired. I had no idea I would love this kid so much or that I would want to be with him constantly. Everything else just kinda falls away. I don't mean it to, I try to be aware, be present, be kind to those around me. It is just hard. This shift is not just for parents, it can happen anytime you suddenly commit yourself to a new calling or presence.
So I am tired and obsessed. I am overwhelmed. It is easy to stay home with the kid when I don't have to be somewhere. And it is just easier to hang out with other moms, or with no one at all. Suddenly the excitement I felt around social events, networking, even lunches and mani/pedis feels like work and even talking on the phone is an impossibility.
On the other side, Gemini human that I still am, a part of me feels like I need more help and connection now; and it's hard not to just pick up the phone when I want something or someone. Oh, the selflessness in serving another human and the selfishness of still being one!
I find myself being afraid of sounding selfish or needy and then I don't reach out at all. I wonder what the point is of trying to maintain my standing in the community or my friendships.
It is not a comfortable place to be. I don't know what the solution is or even if one really exists. Perhaps I just need a shift in my perception.
Enter, as always, the new moon. Aquarius, fixed air, is the sign of community. She is the weaver of the web, the social director that stands back and sees how the event can be unique and wonderful. She is smart and effortlessly maintains all the pieces that need to be woven and the balls that need to be juggling. She does what she does for the highest good, the collective consciousness and the much bigger picture. It's not just about her, or any single person or linear list of persons. She is concerned with all beings.
She is also a little aloof, detached and ambivalent to the emotional needs and desires of others. Aquarius new moon following the Cancer full moon is about as different as it gets, but both are pertinent players in the game of life.
Cancer allows us to drop into that place of overwhelming need and feeling. She forces us to look at the uncomfortable emotions around family, life and what brings us closeness and comfort. Compared to Capricorn, the new moon cycle ending, and Aquarius, the one beginning, she is the almost intolerably needy but necessary.
Capricorn turned our attention towards the active, masculine, anchoring energies of manifestation, and now Aquarius, who is neither feminine nor masculine, but rather androgynous in her universality and preferences, has us step back from father/mother and into the realm of simply being human. Rather than labeling and demanding roles, expectations and results, Aquarius steps back, shrugs and says "what is needed for the benefit of all? Not for just you to succeed (Capricorn) and for you to feel good (Cancer) but for everyone to live just a little bit more happily?"
I, too, have to step back. Being a mom is amazing. But being a wife, daughter, sister, friend, teacher, student and mother feels overwhelming. I know many of you relate, we all wear so many masks! Can we just come back to being human? And can we behave as we want other humans to behave, without attachment or expectation? Can we soften the guilt, anger, love, resentment and fear and just breathe? Aquarius is air, after all. Can we just do, one day at a time, the best we can do and what needs to be done for the highest good for all of us?
It is a tough request, one that requires contemplation and the intelligence that comes from the higher mind, not the primal brain or ego. After all, how can we be human and know the highest good? That is the Aquarian think-outside-the-box paradox and it requires both a humbling acceptance of our finite, flawed nature and the nature of others, a willingness to still want to take actions that benefit all the beings in spite of that nature and then a surrender to something greater, even if it is just the idea that there is something greater than our needs. It is in this process that the higher purpose is revealed. But it is subtle and as it is in the realm of air, it is a brief glimpse, a breath, of the highest consciousness, and then the humanness returns.
Many of us can't or won't meet the challenge. That's okay, Aquarius does not judge. She just keeps weaving the web and knows you will find a place in the fabrics, when you are ready. The web is not neat and not always beautiful, it's magic is in the fact that it simply keeps growing, regardless of the imperfections and mistakes. She just keeps weaving it, finding the exquisiteness in creation and connection, in just being human, aware of our humanness, doing the best we can with other humans, one intricate, complicated stitch at a time, one breath at a time.
I breathe in, and I forgive myself for my desires, expectations, flaws and shortcomings. I exhale and I forgive others for theirs. In that fixed space between the inhale and exhale, the exhale and inhale, I pause, and ask Aquarius, higher consciousness, what next step needs to be taken, for the highest good of all. The weaver keeps weaving and the web grows stronger.
Sending you all love and blessings on this new moon, the second one in January, considered to be auspicious by many in terms of potent beginnings (There is no new moon in February in 2014, but two again in March, it will be a powerful spring, but more on that later); also Happy Chinese new year, year of the horse! As time starts to gallop by, do pause in your breath and ask to be guided. May we all remember our humanness, our connection and trust everyone is doing the best they can.
Bekah
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