Fire In The Belly: Original Painting by Jan Henderson http://www.janhendersonart.com
Originally published October 14, 2008
September 5, 2007. I am sitting with my partner of two years in our couple’s therapy session. I have been struggling with ending this relationship for months now. I do not feel I have the strength I need to walk away, without the support of our therapist. I need a witness. I need the safety and the container of this sacred space. I need her help.
I tell my partner that I have been trying to gain a stronger sense of my own power, within our relationship. Nonetheless, I keep hitting that proverbial wall. I have been swimming upstream for way too long and I am tired. I have no energy left. My batteries are drained. I know no other way to get back my power, unless I leave. I want to end the struggle. I want to let go, and flow…the waters of life want to carry me in their most natural way…downstream, and I want to go with them. I have to surrender.
On that day, I had forgotten I was eleven days into my sixth Venus Return Cycle. I was aware that I had been in an eleven month Uranus initiation to my natal Moon, and knew that if I tried to hold on, it would get harder. Uranus to my Moon. Time to change. Whatever I had been holding onto in a fixed place inside of me, in my mental construct of “reality,” Uranus was instructing me it was time to let go, surrender and trust. Trust I was being taken where I needed to go. No holding on…to anything, is what it felt like. Freedom from my past habits, patterns, addictions (Moon). Liberation from the prisons of my mind. Time to loosen the attachments and re-wire. Whatever part of me was still in shackles, I needed to unchain myself. I needed to steal some new fire. I needed to awaken…to a new me.
On August, 25, 2007, Venus made her new statement of intent to take me and the world stage, into an intimate look at the goddess as she shows herself in Leo. Radical self-love is her loudest message to me as she expresses herself through that archetype. Radiant light and power. The energy of the Sun itself. No shame about shining. Unabashed brilliance and expression. The fiery flame of creativity. She shines like this, giving me her energy. I cannot live on this earth without her. I need her light to sustain me. I put her on my altar, bow and pray to her, expressing my gratitude. I know I will have 584 days to deepen my relationship with her. To glean her medicine. I will have to let her die first, in the old form of our relationship. She will take me through a descent, to the underworld, and then back out again. I will rise with a new understanding, another level of integration. The journey will be perilous, but it is one I must take.
On a more personal level, the initiation is about my own Venus in Libra, the goddess as she expresses herself in partnership. The current mystery school Libra is exploring is one of conscious, equal partnership. The old days of hierarchy and relationships ruled by class, social and political structures, are attempting to break down. Relationships born out of an authoritative and power rank, wanting to dissolve. Libra is investigating co-creation at its best. The high ideals around equality in relationship.
I want this. I cannot keep giving away my authority, my power, in relationships. I want shared power. As first time Libra, there are minefields. I will often give up parts of myself, my own truth, because I know I have to learn to consider someone else. Where the give and take occurs, where the balance and harmony of the two create a conscious union, I am being given another opportunity to evaluate. The masculine and feminine parts of me, want to integrate on a deeper level. A new experience of wholeness. I am after the Sacred Marriage. I know it must first take place within me. My Beloved is mine and I am His. The physical form of that sacred union surely must follow. I am committed to finding me and finding him.
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For further reading and investigation into the current Venus in Leo cycle, check out these excellent articles written by Shamanic Astrologers Cayelin K. Castell, Carol Ann Ciocco and Kathryn Morgan. Shamanic Astrology Related Articles
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