The Art of Transformation

January 30, 2022

The world is changing. 

This is not a judgment, or an opinion even, just a simple statement of fact. 

And what are my sources? 

Why, the Earth herself! Mother Nature who shows us all everyday, in every way, that life itself is an ongoing process of change, and that we live in a spiraling, expanding ever-changing Universe.

So here I am, journeying with Nettle (TRANSFORMATION) after a moon cycle with her only last August. Coming around again so soon I know that there is perhaps unfinished “business” to embody and integrate. A remembering to sink deeper into.

Working with the energies of the moon cycle is deeply supportive in the process of actually embodying our understandings, so that each cycle we have the opportunity to build upon what we have remembered rather than repeat the same experiences and patterns over and over.

I know that my body, as part of the magnificent, intelligent Earth, is designed to feel and respond to all the inner and outer conditions of my life. Always guiding me, I can literally feel the pain (and the joy) of my personal and our collective world. I know you can too. 

Think of how we can see when a plant is thirsty, wilting and demanding water. Or how a child, who has not yet been taught how to suppress and control their feelings, will cry and cry in hunger until that need has been met. 

As adults, we are no different. We feel everything. 

And this is where we have the choice to pay attention and take action on what we are feeling, or choose to ignore, or numb, and continue with the same patterns.

Revisiting what was coming into my awareness during my last spin with Nettle I remembered the intense feelings, and burden of responsibility that I carry for the welfare of others. Can you relate? And not just as a mother, which is intense enough, it is also not hard to miss the decades long “people pleaser” programming that is constantly pumped into the airwaves—that we are not “good” unless we put everyone else’s needs before our own—or some version of that messaging.

Now, can you feel it?

In fact, this moon cycle, my neck and shoulders have been screaming, along with an intense deep ache in my hips from the heavy backpack and overflowing saddlebags of responsibility I’ve been dragging around for most of my life.

The problem is that while I am aware of how much energy I expend supporting the wellbeing of others, I haven’t really made any lasting changes in my thoughts or actions. I still choose to expend energy worrying about the struggles of my teens, trying to help them even when they continue to repeat their own cycles of choices that leave them depleted. It’s a vicious circle.  

I wouldn’t say I was a helicopter parent by a long stretch, but to see my kids struggle, to see anyone suffer, I have the deep urge to respond…to DO something! To ease the discomfort. The question is, what is the most loving thing to do?

I feel the sting of Nettle. 

When I am brutally honest with myself I know that in order for them to learn, in order for them to actually make life-affirming choices that bring them joy and peace rather than contribute to the ongoing suffering of the world, they will have to DO it themselves. I cannot do it for them. 

In other words, the more I try to control and be responsible for their choices, even with the most loving of intentions, the more I take away their power to confidently and consciously learn and grow. And simultaneously, the more I let go, the more space I have for nourishing and sustainable choices that support my highest growth and healing too. 

It’s a challenging situation, and both choices are “hard.” But as a wise soul sister recently shared, I GET TO CHOOSE which hard. The hard that leads to more suffering and the repetition of old patterns, or the hard that leads to healing and new growth…that leads to lasting transformation.

That butterfly didn’t just appear. Transformation, change, growth, IS HARD!

I want to live my life in such a way that contributes to the whole, that doesn’t consciously create harm or pain, to myself or others, and I know that I cannot do that from a place of self-sacrifice and suffering any more than I can willfully control life itself, or the lives of others, to be well and happy. 

I know that as the plants and Nature gently (and not so gently) guide and support us, we are also guides and mirrors for each other. I know that joy and peace is just as contagious as pain and suffering. And I know that the more I align with the cycles and the flow of life—the more I embody my true Nature—the more joy and peace I feel in my life. And this is exactly the kind of medicine the world needs now. 

Nettle breaks down your ego. You can’t get too pushy with Nettle or she will sting! She humbles you.

You have to move mindfully, with focused intention, and an open heart. And in your loving and tender and honest openness, she deeply nourishes and fortifies you—transforming you from the inside out.

Doing my own healing work, taking the best care of myself that I can, is the best way to contribute to my family and to the whole—and what that looks like for each of us is just as individual and unique as we each are.

Nettle asks, “How can we learn to trust each other?” 

For sustainable and lasting transformation, I wonder, how we can also learn to trust ourselves? 🌸

 

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