This lunar month we began with a new theme — Unfold / Refold your Self, inspired by the qualities of Cancer’s water element — agile and freely flowing like water.
As I was writing about the theme for this blog and my newsletter, something was bubbling underneath, an inchoate memory of a phase about water… the river… but it didn’t rise into my conscious thought. I felt slightly frustrated and blocked, but moved on.
And then, coincidently (?), I heard the phrase this weekend! And perhaps that wasn’t a coincidence, but a lesson about water!
Don’t Push the River, It Flows by Itself
This was a phrase I heard a lot in the 60s and 70s — usually credited as a Chinese proverb — and I was immediately transported back to those “hippie” days and the call to “go with the flow”. Yet it was also a time of revolution, raising awareness to the social injustices in our cultures and wanting to make positive change in both our society and in ourselves. I feel echoes of those times in today’s pandemic /post-pandemic world and the recognition of institutionalized racism and misogyny, and the reality of privilege. But I digress….!
Rediscovering that phrase became a prompt to consider how I felt about Water then and how I feel about Water now.
If anything, it is more precious and significant. I have always lived near water… wide rivers, lakes, the sea. My connection to Water had always been personal, a balance to the Fire within. Water is an element, yes, but for me it is also an ancestor, a teacher, an ally, a source of medicine and wisdom. I am in right relationship with Water.
When I hear the phrase now, it so strongly expresses the power of Water which we are exploring this month, and how raising our awareness to the flow of our inner rivers can inspire our consciousness to also flow, to resist pushing what must unfold and refold naturally in its time, in alignment with our rhythms. When we resist, we get stuck. When we flow, we can access all parts of our Self, and more easily tap into our creativity.
For me, this is also the basis of shadow work, learning from both the dark and the light within, our conscious and unconscious thoughts and fears, the repressed or submerged versus the expressed or uncontained. And it serves as a reminder that which we fear or resist in the external world also exists in our internal world, it is a part of us. Becoming aware of its presence can free us from pushing or resisting, and move towards releasing, and into flowing, engaging our creativity and the full breadth of our abilities.
And perhaps that was the lesson in my frustration! As I struggled to remember that phrase, I was fighting flow. Resisting. When I resist, I am are thinking not being, stuck not flowing. When I let go, the phrase founds its way back to me. Coincidence or synchronicity?
A soul work invitation
Consider your relationship with Water and how its qualities might inspire your rituals and / or releases on the coming Full Moon on July 23-24.
Perhaps it can support you in gently cleansing or healing that which is no longer needed or has become a burden.
Perhaps it can show you how to flow around a perceived obstacle.
Perhaps it can connect you to your inner flow of intuition and your Divine Feminine.