Weaving New Constellations

“I wonder what would happen if you asked show me blueprint,” she said. There was a small lilt to her question that pointed to a knowing. Like she knew and saw but wanted confirmation.

I paused for a moment.

“It’s a nebula,” I said. “Like the cosmos.”

She reminded me of the colors I pinpointed earlier in the session: blues and purples and light pinks. Effervescence that shifted seamlessly into deep and rich and never-ending: a tapestry of my soul. They were the colors of the blueprint, speckled with stars. I saw myself reach out and pluck a constellation from the sky and weave it into something all together new.

You have the power to create worlds, I heard. What is the world you are wanting to create?

Tears started to fall then, because I have felt less than creative for a while now. In September, I started working on two manuscripts and quickly fell in love with the plots and characters. And then life sent me on a tailspin and the words dried up, leaving my bones feeling hollow.

//

In her book Mirrors of the Earth, Asia Suler speaks of that which every artist knows: with death, comes rebirth. A fallen tree becomes the home and ecosystem of mushrooms. Entire forests are known for their reliance on natural firestorms to push their regeneration outward.

We know this, cognitively. And yet, all too often we fail to acknowledge this truth within our own lives and creativity. Using our life as compost and trusting the process feels off-putting at best and negligent at worst. How do you allow the space to heal? How much time is needed for words to fully form? What does it actually look like to hold space for death and rebirth within your own creativity?

//

I am in a period of rebirth.

I’m a Scorpio rising. My Pluto is in the 12th house. I am not brand new when it comes to regeneration. And yet this process feels excruciating. I buck and kick as much as possible, resisting the ways in which my skin is shedding into something new. I try and wield the change, forcing my hand into spaces no longer a fit. I bend and break myself into tiny pieces in order to fit the mold of someone else’s expectations because this is comfort — the acceptance. Let me be your chameleon and I can show you all of the colors in the world. I will blend and acquiesce and swallow my words until they are lodged in my throat, their sharp edges like shrapnel.

I will smile, because it’s what the good girls do.

All the while the expanse of my soul calls out to me — you know this is too small for you. You know you cannot breathe. Why must you continue to resist the awakening?

I see the expanse before me, colorful and magical and full of possibility. I move to take a step — the leap — but the chains of what was tighten around me.

Do I have the strength to free fall? Do I dare?

//

We expect regeneration to come naturally. Like blinking or breathing or noticing the way the leaves sway in the breeze, we assume that creativity will fall into our laps and all we have to do is wait. And in a way, this is true. In a way, there is nothing we necessarily have to do because we are inherently rebuilding and reframing and reassessing our worldviews. But breaking free of what was is just that: a breaking. It’s not stasis. It’s active. It’s a choice we’re faced with: will we allow the transformation, or will we resist and stick with what’s comfortable even though it’s tattered and bruised and falling apart, a rotten version of what could be?

We like to think that we’ll do it.
We’ll take the leap or allow the mini deaths to come for us and our psyche, pinpointing the programming we’ve bought into without even realizing it.

But what happens when the expanse comes calling and with it, everything we knew as truth stumbles into uncertainty? What happens when our soul raises her hand and whispers there’s another way, if you let me show you.

Will we answer then?

//

Here is what I want to tell you: as much as I resist the rebirth, I know it is for my good. As much as I balk at the expanse, laughing in disbelief at my soul’s inclination to reach for the cosmos, I know that I cannot write from my core if I do not allow the breaking. I cannot get to the Truth if I am constantly running from the light. My words hold no weight if I am comfortable in my smallness. And if I am really honest, it’s not comfortable remaining small. Like an infant breaking free of their swaddle, I want to experience the liberation of taking up space. I know the suffocating feeling of living life bent into a shape that does not suit you. I may bend and break myself into a million pieces in order to gain approval from you, but in the process, every single one of those pieces will be crying out for wholeness.

And the same is true for you.

Consider where you’re breaking yourself down in order to fit someone else’s mold. How does this feel to you? Truly? What would it feel like to answer the deepest call of your soul — the expanse you’re meant to inhabit creatively? What would it look like for your words to come from your core vs what you think someone else wants you to say? What if you let your words fall hot and true, the tendrils of energy falling off of them and weaving together to create a world full of beauty and luminescence and depth and intention?

I imagine it would feel a lot like plucking a constellation from the blanket of stars and creating something all together you.