Siete Raices
Inspired by Alejandro Jodorowsky, I am trying to share 7 contemplations or truths with you weekly. Read on for my 7 truths of this week:
Seven “roots” for your consideration:
ONE
Virgo/Moon medicine: it feels good to be useful. It feels good to be of service. It feels good to be needed. It feels good to be encumbered. It is a privilege to give, to nurture, to sustain and support life. It is a privilege to have the means to contribute to community. It is a delight to nurture. It is a sign of being under-resourced when we are not feeling generous and supportive. That means that wealthy people who are not generous and who do not give back to their community are - ironically - under-resourced somewhere. (see root 6)
One of the quotes I return to is this one by Martín Prechtel: “A worthy person knows how to do things - raise children and animals, grow food, fix things, nurse the sick - knows how things work. This able human always looks happy and a little tired, entangled, and encumbered. But an unencumbered person with no luggage who looks well-rested, free and easy, can’t do shit; and that shameless soft-handed elitist always wants the encumbered one to fix their problems. God is encumbered.”
TWO
Emotional detachment vs. emotional disconnection. This is the strength - and nuance - of air: the depersonalized/dry/unemotional approach doesn’t mean you don’t care, even if a watery person in a watery energy has a hard time believing that. But be discerning - is it detachment or disconnection? One allows emotions, one doesn’t.
Air doesn’t mean no emotionality - it is just a particular style of relating to emotions.
THREE
Astrology can help us navigate difference and difficulty more skillfully - relational solutions and possibilities appear where there seemed to be none before. That feels magical.
FOUR
We’re so much more eager to do the hard (self-harming) work of fitting into consensus culture than the hard work of accepting ourselves as we are. When I offer to teach parents to accept their children, I hear crickets. When I offer to teach their children “life skills” or “social skills” or “executive functioning,” I have people beating down my door. We won’t shift consensus culture by submitting so readily to it.
FIVE
A medicine of Aquarius is in not feeling special (feeling special is the purview of Leo). Ironically, when we stop feeling special, we access the mass evidence of the collective. “I’m not special” means thousands and millions of others have succeeded in this, or endured this. And if they got through it, who am I not to? “I’m not special” might not sound particularly inspiring at first pass, but it can offer an anonymity (I’m just one of a whole crowd/demographic) and a normalization (this happens all the time!) that can be very empowering and de-stressing around risk, visibility or chasing a dream that feels unrealistic or undergoing a suffering that feels personal.
SIX
No peak experience, no amazing adventure, no wealth/status conquest feels as special, wondrous, juicy, enriching and enlivening as making a quality, authentic, intimate connection with another being. The real currency is relationships. A lot of money rich people are actually relationship poor and that might explain a lot.
SEVEN
Instead of rushing to fix a problem, first take a while to get to know the problem. Ask: How do we know this is a problem?
For whom is this a problem (and for whom isn’t it)?
Why is this a problem?
Many problems (in the worlds of parenting and relationships) are either not problems at all upon closer inspection, or are not universal problems (eg, they’re a problem for one person but not the other), or are not the problem you think they are and therefore don’t require the solution that you think they do.
Read the “tiles” version of this post on my Substack here.
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