New Moon in Leo
“I've always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar ...
Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.”
- Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, The Danger of the Single Story
Each one of us is made up of many parts and many stories.
When we are identified or merged with one part or one story that lives within us, we exile or otherize another part or another story also living inside of us, pushing its impact on our lives and our relationships into the shadows.
What arises from this internal division is an experience and polarization of the unmet needs to be seen as special (Leo) and to belong as an equal in community (Aquarius). It generates an internal competition, as our own parts clamor and vie for their moment in the sun.
Up until now, however, we may have hit a kind of homeostatic compromise between all our aspects that we've been able to maintain. There is a story hierarchical structure that allows the illusion of the single story or mono-mind paradigm to seem real. In our decisions, some stories have more sway, some parts are suppressed, some parts silenced. From this internal homeostatic compromise, one dominant story consistently shapes our self-expression in any given setting or relationship. It appears possible for us to be put into a box. It appears that we are predictable, both to ourselves and others. Relationship conflicts arise because neither is true, but under this illusion, we don't recognize that's the problem.
However, in times of uncertainty and instability, this homeostasis is disrupted and the under-represented stories have more space to come through, creating confusion or psychological stress. This internal struggle to be seen, acknowledged by and belong to our own Core Self can be projected out in our communications with other people, giving this existential need to be seen and to belong to a power and authority outside of ourselves — impeding our capacity for open curiosity, listening and relational healing.
We long to be seen in our Wholeness. We long for our spontaneous goodness to emerge, surprise, unfold from the spaciousness that is created when all of our messy complexity is allowed, held and honored, with healthy boundaries.
Back on July 14th, Pallas Athene — Warrior Goddess of Strategy, Holistic Wisdom, Healing, Weaving, and Cultural Renaissance — stationed direct in Pisces. Athena’s transit through this Mutable Water sign has been priming our system to perceive patterns beyond duality, in a way that allows us to catch ourselves in the process of creation (or in the flow from Formless energy into Form) at the point where we have been conditioned to flip from approaching duality from a place of Wholeness, Connection and Self-Belonging … to striving to achieve Completion or Belonging from a place of duality, inner division, hurt — or, in other words, from a place of identification with one story, one perspective, one part (or subset of parts) of ourselves.
This dovetails into Juno stationing direct this past Monday (August 2nd). Juno represents the principle of relatedness and that urge within us to seek and attain equal and fair partnership. She stationed direct in Sagittarius, opposing the South Node in Gemini. One way to read this transit is that we are being led to let go of certain ways we have oriented toward loyalty from a mono-mind paradigm. This year and particularly right now, possibilities for soul healing and expansion are emerging through the lens of multiplicity — in other words, through an embodied understanding that we all contain many, many aspects or parts. Each with their own story, experience, hurt-driven impulse as well as sacred goal and function. And, again, we are always longing to be seen and to be related to in our Wholeness. Not addressed as if one piece of ourselves is all there is to us. We cannot be put into a box or be made predictable.
When we have merged with one part of ourselves, we don't just otherize other parts of ourselves, but we make an “Other” out of other people — from groups of strangers, to those most dear and intimate. From this distortion, we are positioned to fall for the belief that if the other could just change in this particular way, the situation could be resolved. So we invest our energy and resources in changing them, whether it be through explaining to them what they need to do or how they need to do it, or through judgment or punishment, or through helping more, giving more, loving more. But as long as it is coming from this internal divide or split within ourselves, we will come from dis-connection and a distorted perception that limits access to a truly effective "strategy" from holistic wisdom and interconnectedness beyond Form (Pallas Athene in Pisces).
We don't mean to exclude parts of ourselves. Maybe the parts we don't consciously meet or include in our awareness are those that we don’t believe we are good enough to have, or that have never been recognized and reflected back to us by our primary caregivers. We may unwittingly project those parts upon another (a friend, a lover, a partner, teacher, healer ...) but then become disappointed, heartbroken, confused, or angry when they don’t always deliver, or match that image, or stay on that pedestal, giving us an experience of that part of ourselves and thus a feeling of wholeness and stability.
On the other hand, there are parts or stories that we think we are (or must necessarily be) above, too good or too woke to contain. Maybe we learned that it is too dangerous to consciously acknowledge a story that lives within us, thereby inhibiting a responsible relationship with it within ourselves. So we project that story onto another, working it out through our relationship to them.
When these projections and relational dynamics become a pattern, it is likely because our projection matches another’s own subconscious self-concept, in a way. For example, maybe our partner has been conditioned to identify with that “good” part that we’ve project upon them. Or, maybe our partner has been conditioned to identify as not that “bad” part which we are trying to bring their awareness to … coming energetically from a place of our own inner resistance, intolerance or repulsion to that quality in ourselves.
And, when our projections match our partner's self-concepts, we bind each other further to our own bondage ... even as we try to get each other out of it. In this way, Juno in Sagittarius with the South Node reflects that relating to each other from a single-story structure is more conducive to power struggles and overt or covert abuse, as we unwittingly break our own and other’s boundaries in order to try to re-gain Wholeness.
My next newsletter will be on Mars, the protector of the Divine Child and our capacity to sacredly play, shine, express, love, radiate from a place of utter and indivisible Wholeness. It's paradoxical, as Mars is the part of us that is built to sever and separate. We will talk about Mars in Virgo and the possibility of shifting from its conditioned tendencies to go to battle on behalf of a single story — and re-assign Mars to the soul work and service of severing attachments and separating our seat of consciousness from any single part or single story that tends to merge with our capacity to See, thereby liberating the sovereign Self in All, opening spaciousness for the Sun to shine its unique ray through each of us.
All of us included.
As we move forward into the Unknown, as pieces of the world that we once knew continue to change, as the foundations continue to quake ...
Remember that there is no one way to respond to something. There is no single story. Breathe soft spaciousness into it and wonder what else is inside you.
Astrology is such an empowering way to recognize our multiplicity, to honor and hold all parts of ourselves, become organized around our true purpose, and allow something genius to emerge. It is a way of healing power-over dynamics of our own psyche. It is a way to give rise to a direct experience of wholeness, being seen, and belonging to ourselves — and thereby regenerate a relational harmony in our world. Book a session with me and let's dive into the work of re-membering together.
With Uranus forming a square to this New Moon, now is a perfect time to set the intention and begin the play of un-blending from any single part, thereby simultaneously opening up even more to the fullness of our humanity and allowing our essential Being to shine forth.
Many blessings on this New Moon in Leo,
Nicole
