Take Up the Sword of Truth
By
Sarah Varcas
This Grand Trine brings relationships into the spotlight once again, and with Mercury still retrograde in Gemini it signals a need for clear communication and a willingness to say what we mean and mean what we say. Which may be a lot easier said than done! No matter how clear we feel we have been, somehow meaning gets lost amid emotion, facts among fantasy and all manner of nuance is silenced by the need for incontrovertible fact.
That said, all is not lost and the issue is more one of awareness than unavoidable fate! If we can remember that what makes perfect sense to us may be gobbledegook to another, that our priorities are not universal and our needs are not the same as everyone else’s we can take things in hand and nurture clarity out of what may at first look like very muddied waters. Ceres in Aquarius supports the expression of our individuality, honouring the quirks and foibles that make us who we are. In doing so however, she encourages detachment from the need to be accepted and advises that if we truly want to stand in our own sovereignty we must, at times, do so alone. Authenticity is not the most celebrated trait and whilst the desire for honest and open expression is gaining traction these days there are still great forces which bolster falsity, create veneer rather than depth and promote collusion with the prevailing status quo. Standing up to be counted can equal rejection and ridicule for many, so Ceres strengthens us, fostering spiritual backbone to say and hear it like it is, whatever the consequences.
At this time speaking the truth is more important than the results of doing so. If we speak it thinking it will clear the air or align us with others we may be disappointed. The sword of truth does not unquestionably unite but often divides and tears asunder a previously ‘stable’ situation. But stability lost in the face of truth is not in fact stable, more an uneasy truce born of denial or fear rather than openness and authenticity. With Mercury retrograde there is much to be articulated and exposed. The very fact that it hasn’t been before is testament to how much we fear the truth and its sometimes uncontrollable outcomes. But it is the hardest truths to articulate which liberate most fully in the long run, for the energy bound up in denial and avoidance, in pretending all is well when nothing could be further from the case, needs release like volcanic pressure. We cannot live in denial of what our very heart knows as real without a wounding toll on our well-being.
Ceres wants, above all, to nourish our growth and assure us we are loved just as we are. In her alliance with Mercury and the North Node she reminds us no relationship is worth a sacrifice of self on the altar of falsehood and denial. If we feel in our bones that something is true then it is true for us and needs expression, even if only to ourselves in the first instance! The most wounding denial is that propagated in our own psyche when we ignore the intuitive knowing, the signals from our body, the feelings and sensations which tell us ‘this is the way it is’. When we lie to ourselves we cut off the deepest part of us, the most profound knowledge of Sacred Source whose tendrils reach into our minds and hearts to communicate what must be known. Ignoring this communication makes us outcasts from our own wisdom, preferring instead the false safety of believing a lie.
We believe many lies, even as we awaken to others. The layers of truth, when peeled away, reveal the deeper paradoxes of the human state in which something can be both true and false: true for you but not for me; true from a higher perspective but not from a human one; true right now but not later today. It is the complications of such paradoxes that we seek to avoid by simplification, or blatant avoidance, of what is. In fact authentic communication takes a lot more than simply saying what is true. It entails a recognition that truth is largely relative; that emotions colour truth and our perception of it; that the consequences of uttered truth may be out of our hands as soon as the words are out of our mouths. To honour truth may require a deeper willingness to walk a path that leads out of our comfort zone and into the world of conflict and challenge rather than clarity and balance.
Honesty is not a panacea for all ills. If it were the human race would be a lot better at it! In fact it can start wars, destroy relationships and generally throw our life into disarray. But the insidious effects of avoiding it are more deeply destructive for they isolate us from our inborn wisdom, from the intuitive heart which knows what is and what isn’t in the blink of an eye. At our very core we know truth without question. Our challenge is to share it, live it and trust it to do what it must in every corner of our lives.
Sarah Varcas
