hello, hi, g’day -
today’s musings center around the shifting self and the undoings of a script that to be ‘stable’ is to be unchanging.
up until a year ago, i had lived my entire life, with the belief that i was born on September 19th, 1989 at 8:45 am. this birth time made me a taurus moon. on top of already being a virgo sun, that was a lot of earth to be. and while i did like eating in bed, i was also always changing and in flux and starting things and not finishing them and feeling very ashamed of that.
then, one day, like all stories go, my mother gave me a box of heirlooms- christmas ornaments, photographs, baby shoes, and the like. amongst the objects was a small keepsake card from the hospital where i was born. it was filled out with my birth date, name, and time. and the time was… drumroll… 8:45 pm. PM! not AM!
i screamed and immediately took to Co—Star.
with this 12 hour shift, my moon sign had changed from taurus to gemini. my world felt like it was ending and opening at the same time. i was annoyed with myself for being a gemini because i had such love/hate relationships with the geminis in my life. i saw them as flaky and careless and i was supremely jealous of the permission they were given to be exactly that.
so now i had it, the permission to shift. to be insatiably curious. to let go and not look back. i knew that i had an immense capacity for change, endings, and beginnings, but i was still somehow looking for the identity to end them all- the me that would replace all former me’s and be the final boss me. the me who had a new idea and then made a life out of it that she’d never have to leave again. i was, of course, codependent at it. traditionally, i would leave an old me and become a new me with the new me already lined up. i wasn’t at all good at letting something go just to hold that empty and liminal space. that’s what scared me. that’s what kept me in the things that no longer served me for far longer than i should have been there. the fear of that empty identity-less space.
weeks came and went and i sat with my new permission. the epic universal permission to shift early, often, frequently, and with ease. to shift without apology. to shift as in letting go with a sort of cosmic trust that the next thing would flow in effortlessly. i didn’t need to work so hard to have some new and concrete thing lined up and ready to go. i started to think i’d been cheating myself with the need to have all of the control- there was no room for the divine intervention that comes when there is an empty space made for it, and so the divine interventions came in the form of emergencies and rock bottoms. they were big and scary and they hurt. and i know my higher self and all of my guides were like “ughhhhhhh we’re gonna have to toss her right into this one because she will not do it herself.. even though we gave her this extremely smart and powerful tool.” (p.s. the tool is my nervous system and my barometer for anxiety ~ she always knows).
during this time of sitting with the permission, i became aware of this nagging, subconscious script looping in my mind that told me endings meant failure and identity changes meant that i was an unstable person- untrustworthy, even. and i had a lot of evidence for this. after all, i’d hurt people by changing.
there’s nothing worse than discovering alongside the person you love, that you aren’t who either of you thought you were.
but this scenario isn’t really about the issue of being a curious and dynamic human being, it’s an issue of selling a watered-down and singularized version of yourself that matches the things another person likes best. at first, this is easy, but over time, this version of you becomes a tower of self-abandonment, where your other parts are locked high and away. and you find yourself feeling very far away from them- grasping for anything that might awaken those lost selves. and usually, this is when we double down on our coping mechanism or when we cheat (idea of a new person makes a space where we embody those lost parts of ourselves).
so this is where the codependency meets this gemini moon permission… i had to decide to stop selling a singular, sorted, and prescribed version of self in order to secure the next attachment. i had to sit with my very big loneliness. i had to be truly free in order for my shifting self to take up space. my surprise moon helped me claim a self that has always and will always be shifting.
fully fucking fecund with the permission to shift, i have been one hundred versions of myself this year. i was a person consumed by grief who took salt baths every single day. i was a person who healed her loneliness and then felt empowered to make a podcast about shadow work. i was a person who recorded one episode and figured out podcasts were too hard for me. i was a person who started a meme page and made five memes (not an overnight success). i was a person who took a death doula training. i was a person who became obsessed with green burial and decided to start a cemetery (that dream’s not dead). i was a person who lectured in colleges and educated artists. i was a person who stayed in bed for an entire week. i was a person who created a new life for myself. i was a person who was there for her friends. i was a person who started and quit and started and quit. i was a person who decided to take a break. i was a person who started writing again. i was a person who made a substack (irony not lost on me). i was a person who moved on and kept moving on.
today the script feels more like “she’s a really interesting, creative person who knows herself” than “she’s a danger to society, watch out”. leaning in on that. more changing, more growing, less fear, less stagnation. new places. new people. new jokes. AND favorite routines. go to places. chosen family.
a poem
Time is a Goddess
Time is a Goddess who minds you dearly. There is no emergency. You do not have to know. You do not have to decide. It will unfold for you, in perfect timing.
Time is a Goddess who minds you dearly. Trust her. You are blessed with the materials of space and motion. Cultivate these things. One of them is you.
Even when rushed, frantic, and forced, you have managed to become (to unfurl). There is no emergency.
on loop
this perfect Yoncé cover of All Night by Marika Hackman
this equally perfect Beach House cover of Zebra by Yuno
Clouds by Wildlife Freeway (who sounds a lot like Soko btw?)
an old fav, No Woman by Whitney
Unsolicited Advice by Charles Spearin
Here’s a lil playlist with ‘em all because I do love you.