Stumbling into Aries Season

Welcome to Springtime!

A new season and a new astrological year in the skies. Aries season brings with it inspiration, new starts, and adventure, but what if you, like me, are having trouble stepping into this new chapter?

It’s easy to say “drop old habits that no longer serve you” and “let go of the trauma from the past” but what if those habits and that traumas are deeply ingrained into your personality? You may not know who to be without them. Well… THAT’S the initiation that Aries allows us to create.

This morning I turned to a favorite deck of Tarot cards, The Goddess Tarot. Each card in the Major Arcana is represented by a different goddess from cultures around the globe and the card I picked today was #13- Transformation, or “The Death” card in a standard deck. The Goddess represented on this card is Ukemochi from Japanese mythology. The story goes that after Ukemochi was murdered her body lay on the ground but didn’t decay, it became an endless and boundless food supply that could not be destroyed. Her head turned to cows, grains sprouted from her forehead, and rice plants from her belly. Life was given an opportunity from her death.

My birthday is this week and while I love the celebration (obviously) I get really stuck in grief this time of year. I was born into chaos and have lived with a mixture of gratitude and sorrow for being alive while my identical twin sister died after 6 months of pain and suffering.  I struggle with the tough questions of why she was meant to die and why I was meant to live. Never knowing if I am one or just half of two. Every year the grief hits me differently because every year I am different. As my cognitive abilities and capacity for emotional expression developed, I have had to learn how to mourn over and over again. And here I am, turning 34 and still learning how to grieve for her. 

The last few months have been littered with death, terror, and destruction. From a war in Ukraine, to an ever changing pandemic, to the hatred and corruption we see in our own American legislation and government. As Ukemochi died for the next generation of people to survive, I hope that we too can use these tragedies as catalysts to transform and emerge as fuel for ourselves and others. And by doing so we can shake free from the grips of the past and step beyond it into the future.

<3 Reb

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