Note: Standing in for Amanda Moreno’s regular column today is her essay for Cosmophilia, in which she reflects on the experience of editing the featured articles in Cosmophilia: You Belong Here, and on the perspective she has gained over the past year. — Amanda P.
by Amanda Moreno
Being immersed in the “You Belong Here” theme for the past several months, I have a heart that is bursting with gratitude. My experiences with the authors I’ve gotten to work with and their incredible stories and hearts have been humbling and inspirational. There are so many of us in the world trying to engage our lives more consciously, and while that path might feel isolating at times, we are not alone in our efforts.
Collage by Amanda Moreno.
My own reflections on the past year have given me perspective about the incredible shifts we’ve experienced, not just in 2014 but throughout the Uranus-Pluto square, about to make its final exact contact in March.
I’m filled with a sense of awe and hope — and quite a bit of exhaustion as well. I’m hoping we might soon begin to integrate and synthesize our collective journey into the underworld.
I’m not trying to be delusional, here. I am in no way saying that the final Uranus-Pluto square symbolizes an end to the need for change, for paradigm-busting (or bridging), for revolution, and for continued emphasis on increased awareness. I still feel that persistent sense of urgency, reminding me of how much still needs to be done to shift our culture to a more sustainable model. We are not out of the woods.
With that in mind, I’m becoming even more aware of just how much we have to do, now that the lightning bolts have hit and the underworld has turned itself inside-out. We have so much work to do to assimilate what we’ve learned, re-imagine our personal and collective roles, and then build the necessary bridges to bring these visions to reality.
As Saturn has shifted into Sagittarius, I’m discovering something magical and yet anxiety-provoking. It seems that so many of us have gone through such substantial rebirth we are left without narratives that help us to make sense of our lives. What a magical and harrowing thing, to be on the precipice of such great change. The process of rebirth provides strong medicine for the soul, yet there is hesitance in stepping out of the shadows.
The magic lies in that we get to really rebuild our collective and personal stories, reevaluate and restructure our beliefs. We’re returning from the underworld and the ground is ripe for planting. But my, oh my, how tempting it can be to cling to those old scripts, or let them take over when we face the feelings of emptiness that can follow transformation!
There is still wisdom in those old stories, however. The stories shared in these pages, for example. Stories of human beings dancing, laughing, fumbling, bumbling and trudging through life, making their own sense of things and using their experiences to guide them.
It’s an incredible journey we’re on, being alive at this moment in time. Communities of like-minded folks are important for many reasons, one of which is to allow space for despair and disillusionment, some members holding the vision when others just can’t see the light. I wonder sometimes about my own attachment to being an outsider, and what it would take to let go of that identity. Perhaps belonging to a community of outsiders? Time will tell. But I’m looking forward to figuring it out.
Amanda Moreno is an astrologer and general fan of practical woo and paradigm-busting. She can be found in the virtual world at aquarianspirals.com.
Amanda – I want you to know I was likewise inspired and grateful for the opportunity to work with you on my Cosmophilia piece. You are the kind of editor every writer wishes to work with as you provided sound guidance while striving to preserve what was coming from my heart and my own intuition.
As a Sagittarius, I don’t know if it’s Saturn to thank or Uranus and Pluto or all three but shifts that have looked impossible after so many years of striving have shown solid signs of coming to fruition. I do, however, know some hearty appreciation goes to this community of outsiders. Thanks, Amanda, for this entry and the work you do.
– Rob
Aw, Rob – thank YOU! So much. You make my heart happy.
- We’re returning from the underworld and the ground is ripe for planting. But my, oh my, how tempting it can be to cling to those old scripts, or let them take over when we face the feelings of emptiness that can follow transformation! –
AND
– I wonder sometimes about my own attachment to being an outsider, and what it would take to let go of that identity. Perhaps belonging to a community of outsiders? –
Amanda, we share a frequency here. The first statement establishes the profundity of true awakening. It is not about Bliss, yet bliss is more abundant after awakened consciousness emerges. It takes a new outlook. It is sometimes a disturbing place to be but turning back is not possible.
I often tell myself that if it was easy everyone would be finished by now. It was never meant to be easy – so I deal with what is.
Then – in the second thought I highlight from your articulation – there is the rational question – am I really awake – or just going through another delusional perspective? I sense this to be the case. But whatever it takes to get to where I am drawn, so be it.
Amanda, I’m glad the journey through Cosmophilia worked you over. Sounds a fine trip!
“Oh those crazy angles, Uranus and Pluto and about a gazillion other objects in here.. the infinite continuum is a big-ass smile with nothin’ better to do than exist in it’s own orbit.”- I said that.
One foot in front of the other. No matter how heavy or awkward the load, each step.. and smile! (Unless smiling pisses you off at any given moment, then laugh about how fucked you are!)
Saturn, the light of reality, in Sag., ..could possibly be a fairly decent dancer.?! ..Gotta switch dancers after this anyway, as is always..
Thanks for the space to be as fucked-up and real as I can figure to be!
[hands together. bow.]
Jere
Jere, you have a trippy way with words…….Have to read everything you say three times. I do love your style, though. You belong here. Smile.
Thanks! ‘Trippy’s’ the best thing that’s been said about my words since ‘cryptic’, (and those are both exceptionally kind terms!).
It figures though, take enough hallucinogens and you’re either ‘trippy’, or your sitting in a padded room moving your finger over your lips making motorboat sounds!?! ;P
Love man, always,
Jere
Funny you are.
Indeed!
Is fun!
One foot in front of the other, smiling and laughing at pain and bliss and how bizarre it all can be… yup!
Amanda, you raise some good points. I wonder if I’ll ever let go of my “attachment to being an outsider”. It’s an attachment that I use consciously for the greater good. If I’ve learned one thing in this life, it’s that I absolutely must be myself at all costs. Fortunately, it hasn’t cost me a whole lot. In fact, the more I’ve come to embrace my individuality, the more I’ve come to fit in. Has anyone else out there experienced this paradox?
I love the bit that goes, “…so many of us have gone through such substantial rebirth we are left without narratives.” I don’t feel like I’m left totally void of narrative, but my narrative has definitely changed for the better. The other night I was having a drink with my director and cast members for the latest play I’m doing. We’re still getting to know each other, so we went around the table, and told our personal stories. I noticed that my story was different than I’ve ever told it before. It was fresh, and I compared how it made me feel, with my old worn-out story. I felt like a new and improved version of myself. I humbly thank the Planet Waves community for helping re-shape my new narrative.
Michael, you remind me… one day a few years ago I was contemplating my “highest priority,” and it came to me – my highest priority is authenticity. Higher priority than relationship or career or whatever, although I’m lucky to have both in my life in ways that enhance my authenticity, whatever that means.
I’d say I have found that the more I embrace authenticity the more I fit in – most of the time. Especially in terms of the ways I feel more grounded within myself. Still, though, there are moments of shy awkwardness that are probably as important to me being who I am as anything else.
As for the outsider bit…still mulling it over. Probably will be for a while. Being “different” sure has its benefits, and it’s a space I’m pretty comfortable holding. I guess for me it’s just a matter of keeping myself in check to recognize when I’m using that identity as a way of avoiding something.
Michael, I have had the feeling for a while that I am in the process of starting over again. When I was three I was the center of the universe and nothing I did was bad or wrong, at least that is how I seemed to feel about me and it really shows in all the old footage of my early days.
Somewhere between three and four I became completely unsure of how I was supposed to be.
I became acutely aware that I was not the center of the universe and apparently decided that I had to be different if I was to please the others. The stress of trying to please the others actually shut me down and the bright light that I had projected became a dark and disturbed presence.
All of my life I have people who tell me to just be myself – But every time I was there was a backlash and I was told to straighten up. Honestly I have had no idea how to be authentically me until the last few years but always it is for the smaller audience, not the collective.
I am so aware that who I truly am is something that wont fly with the broader society – so I have intended to maintain a low profile. However lately it seems like the reactions I have expected to get are not showing up.
I wonder if my evolving authenticity is truly the key to everything – maybe I can let go of all my old programing and start from where I lost myself at three years old. Maybe there is something to fearlessness in being me that truly rests on a magical principal. Maybe that it what we are experiencing together. I like the way that feels.
Amanda, Thank you so much for that beautiful stream of conscious communication.
Building bridges, standing up for and, within, what is is wanting to surface from the underworlds tumble, rebirthing…Re-membering: becoming a member of the community of outsiders.
As Eric so elegantly said in 12 different ways and wrote in another 12, “You Belong Here”…and we all belong here.
Maybe outside is the NEW INSIDE.
Seven billion souls on planet Earth, seven billion ways of looking at things, and every one of them is right!
We all belong, no matter how ‘different’ or ‘alone’ we think we are, we hold one shade, one thread of the tapestry that makes up the whole blanket, and that one thread is so necessary to complete the whole, the blanket would not be finished without it.
But only you hold the light that is you, and not another soul on Earth can shine it for you.
Shine on in all your authenticity, in all your different-ness, in all your magic!
Thank you Amanda