Inward Vision

The Void: cosmic waiting room, interior of a cocoon and its liquified contents, generative space of “everythingness” and “nothingness,” the darkness of being submerged in the earth, ego death and rebirth… the key to transformation and sometimes a frightening place to be. An integral part of all cycles.

I started this with just the title and a few jumbled notes. It began as I was diving back into a daily practice of pulling cards. Partly in conjunction with a psychic development class I’m taking, and partly because as the dust has settled more in this big transition I’m in… I had my first “oh…fuck…now what?” moment. I was seeking some grounding and guidance and pulled the Balsamic Moon card (Dark Moon) and thought to myself “of course, I’m back in The Void.”
Since then this has come up in a number of conversations I won’t directly reference here. Suffice it to say that our human minds don’t love being in the unknown and it seems to come as a surprise that cycles just keep happening, even though it seems like we (or I!) should know this by now. “But wait, there’s more!” I’d also like to add, I don’t see this as a bad or scary space, but it is somewhat more amorphous, abstract and timeless than simply being in a liminal space or transition.

I would be remiss not to mention that this has also been a brutal eclipse season, with more horrifying news of national and world events that mirror our collective shadows and challenge our ability to feel hopeful.  Emotions are especially raw after as these developments continue to reveal the deep level of hatred and injustice in the US in particular.  I hope we can be tender with our hearts, channel our rage and grief, and lean on community so that we can keep moving forward in spite of it all.

If time is circular/continuous/all-at-once then so are cycles, we can be many places at the same time and alas I can only choose a few of them here in this brief broadcast. I’m honing in more on the individual and psychological, because zooming in sometimes makes these experiences more manageable.  Upon reflection probably a lot of what I have to say could extend to collective experiences, but what I’ve been thinking about is how the void emerges in our own psyches and spiritual experience.

In particular I’ve been exploring the relationship between completion/releasing/shedding/unknown and those sparks of creation/rebirth/planting seeds/new beginnings. Even as many rightly point out that we can be in multiple phases of development at the same time, much of the talk about life cycles suggests that they are still distinct. I’m not so sure that they are, or at least sometimes they are more of a cusp wobbling back and forth. At this moment I’m contemplating how they can exist simultaneously.

All seeds grow in the dark. The weeding doesn’t stop right after they are planted. There is a period of overlap, much like the pivot point of the solstice where technically the shift has happened but there are still qualities of opposite movement. Or we feel the shift but we can’t see it yet.

Or to bring it into relational terms, we could think about a breakup: that time where the decision to break up has happened but you’re still separating your lives, and maybe having more talks to process, or even getting unexpected messages from your ex after you’re in the new place/space. Or when you start seeing someone new and the memory reel of your last relationship starts playing on loop.
Or when you’re in a process of healing that requires making new and healthier friendships, and you’re actually more anxious and uncomfortable than ever because you don’t know how to be in that type of relationship or feel “messy.” Or when you are transitioning to a new phase of adulthood and you know yourself better than ever before, and also you can’t picture what the next phase might hold. Or when you’re graduating high school, college, or something else and one part of your life has come to completion and the next hasn’t begun yet.

The Void is that space where endings and beginnings meet. Where you’re in the dark, and maybe a bit lost and confused. It’s the place where we are (perhaps) most connected to our intuition, but also most in touch with our shadows and wounds. Often it’s all mixed together. In my experience easily identifying those shadows and plucking them away/processing them promptly makes it a little easier to make peace but still very tiresome at times. Like that “song of the summer” that seems to be playing everywhere you go and you’re getting pretty sick of it.
Preparation and intention sometimes means that the unknown aspect is a bit more separated from fear and grief, or it feels necessary and therefore a “good sign” rather than like someone hit the eject button.

So what does it mean to be in a place where you’re both moving quickly with confidence and intention AND entirely unable to see what lies ahead? 

How do we make peace with choosing the unknown in favor of something familiar but maybe not what we really need? 

And where does the line between magical thinking and suspicion/rigidity lie?

(How do we cultivate intuition with discernment?). 

Can you relate to these questions?
Just like how black holes and the ever expanding universe ( I know, I know, I’m obsessed with space!) can seem scary because it’s all so mysterious, even though increasingly we are learning about all kinds of weird and amazing things going on there, maybe the Void can shift from a place we begrudgingly accept to somewhere that’s exciting to arrive in. Or even a much needed respite from planning, moving, and hustling.

Or at least that’s where I’m trying to be. Ask me in a couple weeks if that’s still true…