Becoming the Stability of the Earth: Part 4
Shapeshifting Amidst the Chaos of Middle Spring
To read Part 1 of this series, “Introducing the Invitations of Middle Spring,” click here.
To read Part 2 of this series, “Focusing on Our Four Original Needs,” click here.
To read Part 3 of this series, “More-than-Human Ways to Meet Your Needs,” click here.
Image via Wonder Portals by Marika Moffitt
The Risks We Encounter in Middle Spring
As we move through Taurus season, the medicine of The Hierophant, and the climate of the middle Spring, we may experience a fair amount of chaos. It could be cold in the morning and hot in the afternoon. There might be hail and cloudy skies when we expected blue. It can be difficult to know what to expect, and this is natural and good: it is how new life becomes fruiting life. I remember one Spring day long ago when I was at the park with my young daughter, and the sunny sky quickly turned gray as it started to rain. One of the other parents pulled out her phone to check the forecast and, as we were all getting soaked, exclaimed “Is it supposed to rain?!” I think of that woman often as I stomp my feet in the face of chaos and change, looking at my calendars and forecasts, wishing things were more predictable.
Unfortunately, one of the very real risks of the middle Spring season is that we will become so caught up in how things should be that we cut off access to the nutrients we need. We may choose not to water the seedlings that have sprouted because we believe they shouldn’t need so much, or we leave the nest because the chicks that have hatched are quite ugly. The more-than-human kin around us, whether it’s a fungus, a type of grass, or a busy bird, don’t come upon clean water and argue about how it’s not as much as there should be, or about how it didn’t come when they wanted it to. No, they just drink it in. These beings are so intimate with their environment that they’re in the fully present now, their hunger and satiety making their decisions for them, responding to whatever resources are available here at this time.
This season, we’re invited to stay steady with ourselves and with what wants to grow in our lives even as it changes and its needs transform. If we abandon things too early because they don’t appear to be what we thought they were, they cannot root in or become established enough to bear fruit later on.
When we’re living close to the Earth, listening to her and learning from her, the needs we inherited from capitalism (the need for money, for hoarding, for power) loosen their grip in the midst of the abundance that we experience in wildness. It is true that you can experience abundance and do work that is deeply meaningful to you at the same time, but that may look more like being rich in spacious time or the luxury of eating a sun-warmed Strawberry from your garden rather than earning enough money to purchase a second home or go on an expensive vacation. This season especially, I hope you will orient toward meeting your needs for closeness, sustenance, shelter and freedom in ways that feel soulfully congruent to you. I hope you’ll redefine what words like wealth, abundance, luxury and success mean so that you can more fully inhabit your life and the new pathways that are unfurling in front of you. As you meet your needs, you can step into your full and robust blooming, which is a holy process that is as natural to you as it is to every other being you see around you.
A Shapeshifting Practice
Use this practice anytime you need to step out of your human conditioning and gain some new insights into how to meet your needs in a good and conscious way.
Write down four more-than-human beings around you who feed themselves in different ways (e.g., a flowering plant, a fungi, a bird, and a rodent).
Bring to mind an area of your life that feels challenging, sticky, or like there’s a need that’s going unmet.
Try to get to the emotional root of that need or desire–ask yourself why you need it until you feel that you get to the core reason.
Think and/or write about how each of those beings would meet your need. See if you can sort of “inhabit” their consciousness as you consider what they would do in your situation.
Notice which of these new approaches feels most resonant to you.
Commit to trying one of these approaches for a distinct period of time and see what happens.
When we meet our true, original needs in ways that align with our animal integrity, we not only come into greater harmony with the Earth, but we also channel life-giving resources into the possibilities and pathways that have revealed themselves to us since the late Winter and early Spring. These new ideas and identities have increased appetites at this time, and they need much more than they did as tiny seeds or sprouts. The newly hatched chick within you is hungry, and it needs to experience your attention and generosity if it’s going to grow and eventually take flight. When the new life within us has ready access to the sustenance that it needs, transformation can happen rapidly and in surprisingly delightful ways.
Shifting into the Next Season: Late Spring
When a flowering plant blooms, it makes itself available to the next phase of its journey, which is cross-pollination. Using techniques of pleasure such as scent, sweet nectar, and visual appeal, the flower draws into it helpers that will pollinate it and allow its center to transform into a fruit or seed that will give life to the next generation of itself. If we give our growing identities or ideas the nutrients that they need and then surrender to their blooming when it’s time, we can step into the buzzing experience of transcendent exchange with others. Pollinators will grace our petals, and we’re more likely to have an abundance to place on the great trading blanket of the Summer season.
As the Sun moves from the sign of Taurus into the sign of Gemini, we move from Earth to Air, becoming alight with activity and possibility. We also move from the more singular experience of The Hierophant into the sacred embrace of The Lovers, in which we learn to see ourselves mirrored in the bright symphony of life all around us. If you have been keeping the new growth in your life quiet or hidden, the late Spring may be a time when it feels sturdy enough to share with others and see what happens as a result of doing so. When our deep needs are met, we can withstand the force of flying pollinators ramming into our blooms, or the heavy downpour that bends our heads toward the ground. In the same way, as we cultivate an inner stability and resourcefulness, we can stretch upward into the next stage of our growth cycle.