Spring is tender. Spring is fierce.
Cicely Mary Barker
Walking through the world I’ve been feeling these two contradictory sensations of Spring in the world. But are they so contradictory? To break through something, you need a certain fierceness in your green newness. The buds of leaves I love, in their tender green, must break through harder protective layers with life force. The “The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drive the Flower” is not a passive poem. The butterfly’s tender wings must break through the cocoon. It’s violent, and Spring has its violence too. It’s fierce, in like a lion, and tender, out like a lamb. March is my birthday month and I remember birth has its violence too, a radical transition. I came through in breech position, butt first. I feel held by these two forces as I walk the world, fierce and tender always.
I Walked Home In Its Light
The recent planetary line-up has been intense. The Equinox coincided with the Full moon in Libra and I walked home in its light, the flowers in the night still growing towards the light, reaching, ready, not yet open, waiting. Excited! Effervescent. I felt giddy and then angry and frustrated. Aries season. Head first with horns then abruptly blocked, for there is still more to work with, let go of, move around. But with the Equinox there is courage and belief in the new season. I am taking Hibiscus flower essence, red and pink, faith and confidence, a perfect message for now. Pluto on the South Node seems to be squaring everything and I feel like I’m in the depths of deep transformation.
Pointy Green Suede Shoes
Speaking of violence and tenderness, I feel like growing up is often a process of muting our tender love for self, and that this is often learned between girls as they grow. In seventh grade I had a pair of pointy green suede shoes. I really loved these shoes and I felt like they expressed the essence of myself. They were soft and comfortable, they smelled good. I loved wearing them and I loved looking at my feet in them. I must have been doing just that when a girl at school called me out on it. “What are you doing, are you staring at your shoes?!?” and I immediately stopped and felt guilty for having shown that I loved this part of myself, those pointy green elf shoes that I identified with so much. I can remember other instances of this girl on girl criticism, in the ballet school changing room, in the classroom when you had to pretend you weren’t so smart. It was normal and cool to criticize your own body, it was expected to belittle yourself. None of us were ever beautiful enough. It seems so strange to think about now. There is a price to pay for enforced humility. But is this even humility?
Humility, But A True Humility
I went to look at what the stars had to tell me. The therapist I see who works on archetypes and story with me brought to my attention the story of Cassiopeia, the proud queen who thinks herself more beautiful than all other women, a bit like the evil stepmother in Snow White. She is a big W in the sky, easily identifiable, one of the ones I always see, sometimes called the Throne. This Queen is so vain she thinks herself more beautiful than her daughter Andromeda, and she tells the sea god that her beauty outshines that of his Nereid wife. This enrages the god and he punishes her by flooding her kingdom, telling her that the only way to save it is to sacrifice her daughter to a sea monster. She attaches Andromeda to a rock on the coast, but Perseus the Solar Hero rescues her. He then proceeds to punish the Queen, transforming her into stone by showing her a hideous head that he draws out of a bag. She’s silent now, in the sign of Aries. Maybe the lesson she teaches is humility, but a true humility, not one that puts yourself and others down because you have to hide that you secretly want to be the best. Also she’s really scared of aging and death, but all this does is petrify her, literally.
I Told The Story To The New Moon. I Think She Liked It.
Story can help you identify the tyrannical aspects of your shadow so that they release some of their control, and I feel more at peace with this un-self-loving part of myself as I sit in this story. I told the story to the New Moon. I think she liked it.
This is the last post I will be updating here! If you want to keep following me, head over to www.enosburghessences.com and put your name and email in the little box so you can get on my mailing list. I’ll send you my cosmic updates and news of my offerings as they develop. For now, you can schedule a free exploratory meeting with me to discover how we could work together with the plants to open up your creative flow channels or anything else you want to talk about (contact me if the times don’t work, I’ve only put morning hours but I’m still in Europe so this will be a problem for US friends – amy@enosburghessences.com) or you can book an energy healing treatment. Flower essences will be available in my store on there soon.
I hope you are all feeling the motivation to be more truly yourselves, to move forward with the spring, and to appreciate every living green thing!