Rejection as Success: Shining Ourselves in the Light of the Full Moon in Leo

A lion smelling the good green grass…

Me, the Moon

The Full Moon for me is always a mirror. I get to look at and see clearly where I am and where I have come from. In Leo, she shines particular light on our vibrant selves, who we are in the world, how we want to be seen and how we feel our self-worth. I’m in Edinburgh at the moment, and these past few mornings I’ve been doing yoga in the Scottish sun, feeling like the moon, basking in the reflection. Today I fasted. My dreams have been rich with symbols. This morning, the Lion and the Snail in my dream were two types of people, two ways of being. The one going fast and proud, moving forward, the other feeling pulled back, lethargic, taking the day to dream awake. In myself it can feel like a lot of contradictions to take.

Outside, the Planets

The planets are full of contradictions right now too. Venus is currently conjunct Chiron, the wounded healer, and Black Moon Lilith, the wounded feminine, in Aries, and they are all approaching a conjunction with my natal Venus. It feels like some kind of showdown. My wounds around rejection are coming up. In Aries, my Venus likes to take action, but with all these shadows, she feels stuck. Saturn and Pluto are still communing, though finally separating, which brings a heaviness to everything. We might only be able to see the dark. And Jupiter is there in Capricorn too, making all of our personal gripes epic.

A New Rejection

I missed the last New Moon in Aquarius write up because I was busy with the possibility of a dream that evaporated a few days ago. At the beginning of this cycle I was caught up in newness, stretching my wings away from where I am, dreaming of a new job and external validation, almost tasting the success of this, then this week I found myself abruptly back on the ground with only my own compass to consider. I tasted disappointment again, and what came up for review was every other instance in my life of rejection. We’ve all been there. Not chosen. This is the area of my life that this Full Moon in Leo is asking me to consider.

A Six-year Losing Streak

In more areas of my life than one, I’ve been on a six-year losing streak. This means that since a 2014, I have not experienced, in love or career, that which other people would define as success. I have not gotten jobs I applied for and I have not had the intimate relationships that I have wanted. I had to leave the country I was living in and was literally almost banned from returning for overstaying my time. 2019 was a deep experience of many types of rejection. For the most part I tend to see these things as positives in retrospect and I know how to turn good luck into bad. I claim my choices. And in this same years I did finish my dissertation and I did start a business (neither of which have, as of yet, brought me much recognition or income). I have been hugely satisfied by a few articles I have written and published (for free) and I have cherished my growing intimacy with plants, neither of which I probably would have done if I had experienced more standard markers of success. I have also been blessed with a level of abundance, of food, shelter and love unlike any I have ever known. I love myself more, I am closer to my family, and I never have to worry about how I am going to get my next meal. I was able to buy my first car and I am living in a house with more space to myself than I have ever had. I live near a forest and I am learning the abundance of trees. I work with plants and help people in my community connect to their creativity. So what of my repeated experience of rejection?

My Old Story of Rejection

I have deep childhood wounds around rejection. I moved a lot, I never felt I belonged in my family, I was the youngest and I often felt left out and left behind. I had absent or distracted parents for various reasons. I had a hateful brother. This narrative I know, and many people know. I think I coped with all of this by creating a sense of entitlement around love and achievement that I didn’t question, that surrounded me like a bubble and kept me safe, mostly safe from my own wounds. A lot of my adult life has been involved with looking for exterior validation to keep me protected from these old wounds. In the process, I’ve been disappointed and this has allowed me to uncover them, undoing this false sense of pride that protected me and learning the humbling lesson that nothing is owed to me. The ego comes undone with reality, I see my wounds and I find my path. My soul wanted this. I remember shadow work, and the work I’ve done to embrace the fact that my unconscious wanted to experience these lessons. I’ve gotten used to disappointment. This doesn’t always make it easier in the moment, but you might even say that sometimes I glimpse the way my disappointment is my success.

What is Success?

Which makes me wonder about success. How do we define it? On one level I want to follow my own path to it, yet it seems easier to be a satellite and to be in someone else’s sphere than to shine and step out on my own. I want outside validation. I’m tired of sitting here alone. I know that because of this I have been avoiding stepping fully into my work here on Earth. I’m still looking for the opportunity that would take me away from myself, from my mission, from the experience of my own creativity. Sometimes I don’t really want to take the risk that would put me out there - I’d rather work on someone else’s project. But its ever clearer that the Universe doesn’t want that of me, even in cases where I know I could do it and I would be good at it. The Universe is asking me to be my own sun, to shine in the way I want to, at the center, not orbiting someone else’s star. Not getting the recent job offer I was hoping for actually reoriented me towards living my own dream more fully, standing in my power, shining my light more brightly, and better serving the world in this way.

Singing Our Names

At my singing retreat, we talked about our names. Our names define us externally. Mine have often felt superimposed on the reality of my soul. Yet my name is also what forged me in the material world. It is how I came to be and how I continue to grow. Together we learned it is possible to sing our names, to sing ourselves back into being, to become embodied as the beings full of love that we are, woven into existence through our names and our connections, through the people who named us and the people who call us. Our names are much more than superficial. They are filled with meaning. And even if I am rejected, nothing is stopping me from singing my own name and owning my own presence as a bright light on this Earth.

Rejection is my Success

So maybe rejection is my success. I remember the saying I learned once doing EFT Tapping through one of my romantic disappointments: “Man’s rejection is God’s protection”. Amen. I have been protected. And in the process I’ve learned how valuable growing my self-love is. Flower essences have helped me immensely in this process.

Flower Essences for Dealing With Rejection and Fostering Self-Love

• Wild Rose helps you release the pain of the past, feel present and loved:
  https://www.enosburghessences.com/flower-essences/wildrose

• Gorse gives you the strength to embrace whatever is currently difficult in your incarnation:
  https://www.enosburghessences.com/flower-essences/gorse

• Self-Heal teaches you that you know how to meet your own needs best.
  https://www.enosburghessences.com/flower-essences/self-heal

• Linden, which isn’t up on my website yet, is the essence for self-love. She brings complete self-acceptance and self-compassion to situations in which we feel are not loved or lovable.
  
  Contact me to talk about which essence or combination could be right for you! You can sign up for a Flower Essence consultation on my home page or make a free exploratory appointment with me on my creative coaching web page.
  
  Plants tell us that whatever we are living in this moment is right.

A snail among the flowers…

A Full Moon Request: Take Care of Yourself

What is this Full Moon asking of you?

The full moon last night was as bright as daylight and the deer were out in the fields. What was this moon asking of me? The fullness of it pulled at my heart and I felt relief this morning when it started to wane again. I called her down and went out to gather some herbs: chamomile and yarrow, red clover and dandelion root, small red radishes, what wanted to come to me. I listened. The crickets are singing and the second nest of baby robins has flown.

With this full moon in Aquarius, the mental was under scrutiny and I felt a strange leap in my own maturity. How do we perceive the world and how much of this is a result of our inner tuning? Our vision depends heavily on our inner states. I was reminded yesterday when I was back in Montreal, standing on the same street as a month ago, noticing how everything looked smaller and greener, less grim and overpowering; a city is just a city, and I can choose to see the trees. It’s as if, with the help of the plants, I can see ever more clearly.

I woke up to the thought that the early summer apples that were falling wanted to be made into vinegar to bring me health through the end of this season. The last few weeks of healing from shingles, and then from a cold, were low in energy and I got caught up in feeling like I would never be healthy again. Yet here I am feeling able to write and work.

This moon is asking me to care for myself. Taking care of myself means to go slow, to be patient with my progress and movements. I don’t have to get things right the first time. I may need to start over.

Taking care of myself: what else does this entail?

Taking care of my body. Needing my lymph to flow – self-massage, body oiling, energy yoga, face yoga, warm water, cold water, walking, eating what my body tells me it needs, avoiding what it tells me is not needed or excessive (sugar, alcohol). How do I pay attention to these signals? I become more aware of them as I take the time to breath and tune into my body. I make time for ritual. I light a fire.

Taking care of my speech and language. Taking care of my words as they are in my head and as they come out of my mouth. Avoiding sarcasm, which cuts into my ability to speak my truth. Avoiding all language that speaks against myself and others.

Taking care not to judge. Not judging means not having expectations of how people or things should be. I accept myself and others unconditionally.

Taking care of myself means being tender with myself. If sadness is a signal to be tender with myself, illness is a sign to be tender with the body. Illness is a sign that I need to up the self-care, to be ever more gentle with myself when the world feels harsh. I may need to sleep and rest more.

Taking care of myself means taking care to help others, which makes me feel good about myself. Taking the time to do good deeds, however small, like making coffee for my family when I wake up or cooking something without being asked. Thinking of what another person would want me to do for them instead of just doing what I want to do. Imagining everyone around me fulfilled and happy.

I think the ultimate self-care practice is gratefulness: I am grateful for my genius, that kind friend who spurs my words along and inspires me daily. I am grateful for all I am given, all that I can give. Taking care of myself means taking the time to feel this gratefulness in my spirit, no matter what the world is presenting me with.

I take care of myself by giving myself opportunities to express myself that feel right, with the right people, and not comparing myself to others. This self-expression affords me the chance to participate in reflection: I am mirroring you mirroring me.

As we wind down for the summer, we can watch the greens turn to gold and consider how our self-expression serves us. What do you want to say? I’d love to talk to you about it! Sign up for a free conversation with me on how working with the plants can help you express yourself. I have two longer-term coaching programs to talk to you about, or if you’d like to learn how to make a flower essence, I’d love to teach you how. These late summer days are just calling to distill some of the wisdom of the flowers.

Lots of love,

Amy

This Land Is Not For Sale: Full Moon Eclipse in Leo

A lion on the horizon, a new self to shine in. This land is not for sale.

Lions in the Masai Mara

The sudden yellow feathers of weaver-birds reminding me of my resilience. I’m building a nest to live in. This land is not for sale.

Warm tortoises moving slowly in the sun, eating hibiscus blossoms. The quiet and growth of owning my privilege, of learning to be grateful, of doing more. This land is not for sale.

Shedding Skin and Selves

I’m almost at the end of my trip to Kenya. I will have spent almost a complete moon cycle here, a little more than one waning moon period, shedding skin and selves. Before coming I had reservations, about participating in what seems sometimes like exploitative tourism or expat living, the trash and development that goes along with it, the travel I no longer want to do by plane, but the land and people here have opened my heart in a way that I think makes it all worth it, and the people and the land here need the money and the visibility of something other then terrorism, something else than exploitation. So I’ll give voice to that, and do something about it. This is right in line with the eclipse – a surprising opening to love that changes one’s perspective and ones actions, from dark to light.

Taking Time To Process and Distill

It feels hard to summarize what I have discovered here and it may take some time to process and distill what I have learned. I made two essences, one, Hibiscus, about faith, in perfect time to counter what has been a continuous flow of bad news, pointing to death and stagnation. The second, a native Sandalwood, made in beautiful bush-land in Kajiado county at the home of dear lifelong friends’ of my parents (now mine), gave me an abundant message. She is appropriately good for transitions, crossing boundaries, moving to new and unknown realms:

This golden skin I’m in, translucent.
It’s very easy for me to detach.
I’m floating above the ground.
There is no ground, I’m floating,
the material world is abstract,
the spiritual is grounding,
what is ephemeral, solid.
It’s easy for me to detach.
I am peaceful in the midst of material difficulty and strife. I rise above, becoming more than my body.
It’s easy for me to detach.
I am sound and senses.
This golden skin I’m in, translucent.

The Intellectual Details

Funny, I think the flower’s message does indeed summarize my trip here, minus the intellectual details:

At an expat party, learning that helping women with menstrual health is difficult because many girls simply don’t have underpants in which to put the reusable pads a German gynecologist acquaintance wants to give away.

Clothes almost free in the markets, many of them coming from European charity shops: how Africa must deal with the results of so much inordinate consumption in Western countries, these piles and piles of clothes.

Money, so abundant in some areas here, is non-existent in others, so that prices are hugely variable; in a Masai village, being asked for 100 dollars for a visit, not wanting to pay it so negotiating it way down then buying lots of crafts from them anyways, knowing they will all share in the earnings. Being repulsed by this cultural tourism yet loving the sound and the colors and feelings and smiles that were shared with us anyways (these people still so connected to the land in its vibration).

Learning: cost is relative, we are all in this together, share!

Wonder and Humble Awareness of Exactly Where We Are At

Open, open, open up to the horizon and see as far as you can see so that every detail of the landscape could be an animal. Elephants! It was explained to me that the whites living here are mostly the ones involved in conservation because blacks think there are lots of animals here, and there are. I see them! Roaming families of elephants. Still the land is emptying of other beings as it fills with humans, you can feel it. There is only a few small steps between the feelings of abundance and those of lack. Where do I want to place myself within that? I adopted an orphaned elephant and didn’t mind giving my money to steal a giraffe kiss. I reveled in it and felt her prickly lips on mine for days. I suppose it comes to that: amazement and appreciation, wonder and humble awareness of exactly where we are at as a species on this planet. I interact as much as possible with the non-human. It reassures me.

This Land Is Not For Sale

This land is not for sale: the sign I most often saw on plots of land in Nairobi, to warn people of con-men selling plots that they don’t have any right to. The city is growing at an unimaginable speed, some areas, for as far as you can see, filled with concrete blocks rising up, which means the middle class is rising, but still, lots of girls can’t afford underwear (this thought keeps coming back). All the beds and couches for sale along the busy roads are directly linked to this new housing, and I think of all the trees required to supply furniture for this new middle class. Yet I notice how lush and green and giving the land is. On the road back to Nairobi from Lake Naivasha I notice the new tree plantations of non-indigenous trees in rows. Just as in more northern countries, this can't be good for the land. I think about the struggle of the giraffe; it can’t eat them and wouldn’t be welcomed on the land there. I imagine there used to be elephants everywhere.

Money Is Really Some Strange Kind of Magic

I try to understand salaries and the huge differences between, say, what I make in Switzerland and what a cook is paid in one of the cafés that cater to the affluent in Karen, their daily salary as much as one of the dishes on the menu. I can’t really understand that, other then to take it as confirmation that money is really some strange kind of magic that makes us feel either wealthy or poor, and act accordingly. I know how I want to feel about that.

I went to a girls’ school, Daraja Academy, near Nanyuki, where the girls were so thrilled to be learning; they wouldn’t have been able to go to high school if they hadn’t been chosen to attend. I helped the English teacher with some lesson planning and befriended the girl I shadowed. I loved our exchanges, her hopefulness and dreams, her realism too about her struggles and the struggles to come. Many girls get pregnant early here and have no choices about what they will become. We talked about wanting to change the world and how to do it. I felt understood. I think I’ll go back there to volunteer in the future. I understood why my father spent his life working for schools like that.

The Nest

Yesterday I gave lots of love to some babies at an orphanage, just for a little while. We had gone to pick up my niece from her community service. The place is called ‘The Nest', and if you are in Nairobi, you should go to their baby village and hold the babies there. They really appreciate it, looking up at you with their big eyes and reaching up, up. I think about all the babies, all the ones that don’t survive, all the ones that do, all of them becoming, moving around like us on the planet. My heart opens. I hope yours does too. I think really all we can do is allow for it and see what the consequences are.

The final message of Sandalwood and the Full Moon Eclipse which kept me up last night: I’m thankful for this experience and the ease with which I can be free.

(Originally posted January 21st, 2019)