Looking to the Horizon

 

Last weekend I watched the film, The Glorias, based on Gloria Steinem’s autobiography, My Life on the Road.  While there is so much more to Steinem’s life as an activist, feminist, and journalist than the film could possibly include in 2-1/2 hours, I was moved by the way it captured her inner dialogue with four different versions of herself.  In between the film’s segments that danced back and forth between her past and present, black and white scenes would take place on a bus where she would have different conversations between her young child self, teenage self, younger adult self and her older self.  They would hold court on the twists and turns she would take and the decisions she made along the way to lead a life that challenged societal expectations of women. 

At one point in the film she interviews her teenage self as if she’s a host on a TV talk show.  Her inner teenager describes her dreams of going to Hollywood and then settling down to get married, have three children, either a boxer or a golden retriever, a house decked out with a dance floor among other things and a convertible.  Then she pauses, looks at Gloria and asks why she isn’t married . . .

This moment struck me, because how many of us could look back on our original childhood dreams that were seeded without realizing all the twists and turns that would unfold us in ways beyond what we could imagine.  My teenage self would have given me a puzzled look if she found out what I do today, but when I think about everything that interested me outside my initial childhood dreams, being drawn to the mystical aspects of life and having natural sensitivities that felt more like a weakness than a strength, it all makes sense.  In having these conversations with my inner child, I’ve come to understand that becoming who your soul came here to be sometimes means letting go of the original dreams and expectations you placed on a younger version of yourself.

Whenever I hear someone in their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond say, “I’m still figuring out what I want to be when I grow up,” I sense a certain self-imposed expectation that they need to have their life figured out in a way that passes some kind of approval rating by society.  To that I say, “None of us have it figured it out.  That is why we are here to begin with.”  Each of us came into this life with a soul contract to learn something and engage with what we learn to contribute to the greater whole.  The circumstances in which we are born, the blessings and challenges we experience along the way and our own internal knowing help to reveal what that contract means to each of us.

This chaos cycle initiated by the events of 2020 is in many ways an invitation for the dreams and expectations of the collective to be released to allow for the next stage of humanity’s evolution.  These last weeks of the year hold some beautiful opportunities for each of us to begin our own inner work to contribute to the collective shifts that will be unfolding in the years ahead.

A new moon solar eclipse on December 14^th is inviting each of us to recognize and begin shedding the expectations and beliefs we’ve placed on ourselves that keep us small and in turn reignite our passions in a whole new way.  Then on December 21^st for the Winter Solstice, Saturn and Jupiter come so close to each other that they will appear as one giant star in the sky just a few days after each of them enters Aquarius.  Jupiter carries the archetypal energies of expansion and optimism while Saturn presents us with an energy that keeps us grounded and practical.  Every twenty years these two planets come together in this manner to usher in a new generation, so to speak, but this time around they are also ushering in a whole new era.  This 20-year meeting of the planets has been taking place in the earth signs for the past 200 years and now they will be meeting in the air signs for generations to come, building on an energy of equality and collective unity. 

Two of the most magical moments in a day are at sunrise and sunset - when the night surrenders to the day and the day surrenders to the night in return.  As we look to the horizon of this next 20-year cycle, these last weeks of 2020 are an invitation to begin healing from the deferred dreams, disappointments and losses, and look with courage to the mystery of what comes next, having faith in yourself that everything you need is already within you and the road ahead will be revealed in right timing.