Living With Extremes
by
Sarah Varcas
This week we find ourselves between the Solar Eclipse and the Uranus/Pluto square occurring on the 20th/21st May. These are incredibly vibrant energies around us now, and the cosmos is alive with potential and possibility. Of course, with the involvement of Uranus and Pluto, much of this potential may reveal itself only in the midst of what at first looks like trauma and even chaos. We may find aspects of our lives thrown up into the air, never to be the same again. Fear may abound, feelings of vulnerability and doubt that we can navigate our way through the challenges ahead. We may yearn for the past even as we know, with absolute certainty, that it has gone forever. We may fear the future, unable to grasp how our lives will look once this whirlwind abates.
Alternatively we may be anticipating the future with excitement and positive expectations. Perhaps things are coming together after a period of struggle and pain. We have invested our time, energy and consciousness into overcoming obstacles and now the rewards of doing so begin to appear. We feel our life is finally ‘on track’ and the future looks bright.
They sound like two ends of a spectrum don’t they? Opposites in the range of human experience. We desire one and fear the other, dividing our life experience into a dualistic framework of good and bad, positive and negative. It is precisely this kind of dualistic thinking to which the cosmos turns this week, encouraging us to think again and find a different way to categorise our earthly experiences.
Solar eclipses often bring the issue of opposites into the frame. Occurring at the time of a New Moon and close to the Moons’ Nodes, they require us to bring together the extremes in our lives and find a way to live with them in a positive and productive way. If we fail to do this, the usual human response to our internal contradictions and paradoxes is to project them, or part of them, outwards. Thus we have ‘me’ over here being ‘good’ and ‘you’ over there being ‘bad’, and we fail to ever recognise or accept that the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is all inside us. Until we work with it there we will forever divide the world in order to cope with who we really are.
This is how the ego functions. It needs something or someone out there to be what we’re not in order to know who we are. That’s how we define ourselves and our identity: I’m like you, who I admire, but I’m not like you, who I dislike. Or I’m not like you, who I admire, but I’m also not like them who I dislike. Or I’m like those that I dislike and I can never be like you who I admire. There are all sorts of permutations, but ultimately they all come down to one thing: dualistic thinking, and dualistic thinking is a sign that our ego is in control (again)!
Of course the ego, in and of itself, is not inherently bad and we need it, to a certain extent, to manage our everyday lives and relate to the world around us. But when it comes to living out our potential, ego eventually gets in the way and needs to be seen for what it is: an old energy that requires release in order to allow the new to flood in. Which is what this time is about. Whatever may be going on in our lives, the challenge is the same: to release the hold of the ego and see things from a different and more inclusive perspective. In this way the trauma and the blessing become one and the same thing… both pointing to an opportunity to change and grow. The chaos and the good fortune both become fertile ground for growth and development. It doesn’t come naturally, and we have to work at it I know. Few of us greet disappointment with open arms and excitement at what the future holds. But the key now lies in not allowing ourselves to invest everything in the ego’s view of our life, to keep something back to see things from a different perspective. To hold even just the tiniest bit of awareness that how we view this particular moment is skewed and could be very different indeed if we let it….
Enjoy the week ahead, and the new perspectives it can reveal to you..
Sarah Varcas
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