By Sarah Taylor
At a time of personal reckoning and responsibility that has felt both broad and deep beyond understanding, I’ve realised how tricky it is to approach the matter of our own personal work without either minimising it or descending into melodrama and fear. We’ve had enough of those last two, methinks!
With the astrology the way it is, and the tarot readings that have been presenting themselves to us recently, there is a lot to be said for the need to descend, discover, give up the old and gather the new. I felt just such a surge into descent this weekend in the form of what felt like a panic attack. It knocked my psyche sideways temporarily, seeming to come out of the blue, when, in fact, it was likely because my attention wasn’t trained on the direction of its approach — the stuff of shadow indeed. As Amanda pointed out last week, watch out for what you’re not watching out for.
And such experiences are not necessarily what we might first perceive them to be. This reminder was invaluable to me as I hit panic mode after being hit by a wave of ‘otherness’ on Sunday evening. The reason for my panic: that there was no apparent reason for my panic. In that moment, there seemed to be little link between cause and effect.
Couple this with what I have just read about Ketu and the south lunar node in an illuminating discussion on Facebook, and I have been able to slot my very personal experience into a transpersonal perspective. Because, really, it isn’t completely personal, even though it might feel like it. We are not being punished; we are taking part in something that is impossible to define but yet feels akin to a rebalancing and course correction. And I don’t believe we are doing it just for ourselves. We are also working together on this, whether we know it or not, whether we want to or not.
So while I do not want to downplay the trials and tribulations on the Hero’s Journey that each of us is undertaking, I do want to bring some light, and lightness, to the proceedings. Not because I am attempting to imbue the story of the search for our shadow natures with some form of false hope in an attempt to reassure.