What Hasn't Been, What Will Be

May 12, 2021 by Erin Moline

Spring is here and with it, also, the energy of Jupiter moving into Pisces. Astrologers have likened this experience to rain after a long drought. Jupiter brings expansion, and for a few months this Summer, he will be in the sign of Pisces, place of intuition, mysteries, deep feeling, sweetness, and water.

The myth behind the constellation of Pisces has to do with a rescue. Aphrodite (Venus) and her son Eros (Cupid) were trying to escape from the monster Typhon, who had taken over Mt. Olympus. To do this, they changed into fish.

Truly, we have been and are going through a collective experience akin to an attack. So much has been disrupted, lost, and changed. The past year, and the years before it, have been a time of trial and truth; confrontation and condemnation; a time when we are all having to decide what to do, and how to rescue and take care of ourselves.

I love the image of Aphrodite and her son escaping Typhon, one of the deadliest of Greek monsters, by diving into the sea. We have Love and Desire, tethered to one another, submerging themselves in the water to find a way to survive. As Jupiter enters Pisces, I hope we will find strength in that experience, an opportunity to see what we can see when we open our eyes and have hope, even if we are seeing underwater.

Neptune is down there too, challenging us to learn to see clearly even when it is difficult or uncertain, even when rain is washing down the sides of the window. Neptune invites us to rely on our inner compass as we navigate murky truths or experiences. I think we’ve all had to dig deep to find the ground we stand on, especially when we are on the bottom of the sea…

Maybe this Summer is a time for reaching for what we want in the future that will, indeed, come. Maybe Jupiter will bring us some help in the taking care of the human spirit in this time of trial and difficulty, bringing his power to expand the experiences of Joy, Beauty, and Connection that Aphrodite and Eros represent, experiences that can seem frivolous, but are essential to human life. Our bodies can survive, at least for a time, without them; but our Hearts and Souls need them like Water.

Rising From The Depths

November 16, 2020 by Erin Moline

As I began to write today, I realized that it has been almost exactly 6 months since my last post. It felt at that time (May 2020) like we were in a collective transformation, and I felt drawn to reflect on the experience of COVID and lockdown. And then we went to even greater depths, the realities and legacies of colonialism, racism, and patriarchal oppression suddenly visible for so many white Americans, some for the first time.

As of today’s writing, the people voted and Donald Trump will be leaving the White House on January 20, 2021, whether he wants to or not. If he has done anything positive for this country, it has been his personification of our collective shadow. And I will never, never say that a presidency such as his was a “good thing” for that reason, but only that if anything good came out of it, it is that.

It’s been almost two weeks since the election, although it feels much longer, and I can feel myself letting down in a certain way, and also grappling with a lot of feelings of all kinds. Like many of you, on the night of November 8, 2016, I deeply contracted. I didn’t sleep. I cried. Then, I went to work and saw clients, being with them as they wept, expressed concerns, and processed what had happened. As I reflect now, since then I have been on a kind of endless marathon, deeply doing my own work around what has emerged for me personally as a I also worked to stay balanced and in a place to offer some hope and process for others during these long, long 4 years. I have learned so much.

There is so much work to do collectively to heal our society, our planet, and to get on a track that will lead us into a livable future. As I sit with the victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (still quite unreal, honestly), I find myself in deep contact with a sense of the importance of these times, now that there will be some room to move.

I think that we will all be touched for the rest of our lives by these past 4 years. In some ways, that has been, again, a positive thing: the emergence of racial justice and social issues, greater understanding of trauma and healing, and female empowerment to name a few. But it has not been a light thing to live with this shadow figure brought to life; to endure it not just in dreams or instances here and there, but everyday, day after day for 4 long years. I think we will all need time to recover, and to figure out what balance our lives might both regain and newly establish as we move forward together. And I have great hope, not because of what I ignore, but because of what I see everyday.

Ariadne's Dreams

May 14, 2020 by Erin Moline

In a time of intense collective dreaming, I find myself thinking lately of the Princess of Knossos, Ariadne, sleeping on the sand. Ariadne was left by Theseus when she was fast asleep on the beach on the island of Naxos. He left while she was dreaming, I’m sure, of something much different than waking up to find herself abandoned by the one she had trusted, the one she had helped, the one she had loved.

Ariadne woke on the beach on Naxos to find herself strangely alone. The water gently lapped at the shore as she rubbed her eyes and looked and looked again. But there was not a ship, nor a man, in sight, and when she felt the indent where Theseus’ body had been, the sand was cold.

She spends hours walking the island that day, trying to figure out how she must be wrong. They’ll be back. He wouldn’t do this. She even dances the enchanting spiralic dances of her home island, toes in the sand, trying to find her way back to center, and, though she does not want to admit it to herself, to try to call him back. What she eventually finds is a difficult truth: she has been disregarded, somehow thrown over. The man she betrayed her own father to help, he has left her. She is alone.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash — Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

That night as she lay down on the sand, she wraps her cloak tightly around her. It is embroidered with snakes and flowers and spirals, and still smells faintly of the incense of the great hall of Knossos. She inhales deeply before gathering her hair and curling up on herself, listening to the waves as she cries herself into dreaming.

In her dreaming she sees the image of her dead half-brother, the Minotaur. He is being killed by Theseus. She is horrified by his face as his dies. She clings to Theseus but feels only coldness and endings where there was once was warmth and holding. He disappears and she wakes up with her heart pounding and salt in her eyes.

The next night, her dreams shift, now she is on a boat with the Athenians destined for death in the Labyrinth. They are crying, holding each other close, fingering household gods and singing the songs of their homeland. She is supposed to be helping them but does not know how. She keeps looking for the key to a box that she knows has the answer.

Then, under a full moon, she is underwater, bodies and bones are piling up, clattering together in the undulations of the water, creating a trap from which she cannot escape.

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

Then one morning Ariadne wakes up. She is still alone. She is still terrified. Her heart feels bloodied by her dreams. But the sun is warming the beach as she finds her feet and plants them in the sand, as she breathes and reaches her arms wide and then surprises herself by screaming as loudly as she can. It feels good. She does it again. She shakes her fists and draws the power of the snake up from the Earth and into her body. Her righteous cries are heard only by the Gods and the birds in the trees who stop their morning song to listen.

She drops to her knees and wails. She wails and pounds the sand until her arms are red and aching. Then, after a time, she sleeps again. In her dreams a white bird comes to teach her a new dance. The bird shows her how flying is dancing, and how wings can be feet. Ariadne awakens to the sound of a voice calling her. It is her friend Daedalus, he is reassuring her, reminding her of something. When she opens her eyes, the beach is empty and she is still alone, but in her heart is a new and ancient song. She listens and begin to dance, her arms reaching for the sky, finding their way into something new, emerging, at last.

She is still uncertain. She does not know that the Gods hear her and see her and that soon her life will change. She does not know that in reaching for herself she has reached for them and that they will answer.

Her night dreams settle as she begins to live on the island, waiting for something, she does not know what. Her night dreams settle as she dances and believes in her heart and lets her body tell the story of her suffering. And gradually, gradually, she feels a lifting of something, something that she had not known she was carrying, and in her dreams appear babies being nursed and animals full of wild power and passion and eyes that stare.

Soon, Ariadne’s life will change, but she doesn’t know that yet. In the meantime, she does what she can: she dances, she screams, she sings, she swims in the clear salty waters of the great white sea. And she remembers what it is that Daedalus was saying to her, something about the future belonging to those who believe in the power of their dreams.