Dear Aphrodite, My stuck places have been unraveling lately, and support has been plentiful. I am deeply grateful, and it may seem like a strange time to write, when things are going so well. With so many profound shifts, though, I’d like to know how to ensure sustainability. I have a tendency to expand rapidly and then contract even more strongly, and I’m exploring ways for this unfolding to be gentler, for new patterns to be established. I have potential for a high-quality relationship, soul-passion entrepreneurship, healthy family relationships, a global network of friends and collaborators–what still needs to shift in order to allow all of these wonderful things to blossom in their greatest expression and timing? Thank you so much for your wisdom and grace. Signed, Cait
Dear Cait, Congratulations! Welcome to Jupiter in Libra! Like you, many people are expanding into new possibilities right now, leaving old patterns, relationships and stuck places behind, as the Universe is giving everyone a cosmic assist, helping us to move more fully into our creative unfolding.
The polarity of expansion and contraction is a universal law. Contraction is a check and balance against over-expansion– moving too far ahead before we’re ready. Think of a toddler who just learned she can walk, so runs to her dad for the first time (Jupiter), then crashes into a table on the way over (Saturn). Growth and expansion must keep pace with our natural development and readiness. We can only grow to the point we’re able to actualize the opportunities being given us.
While the above is absolutely true for all of us, there is a more particular aspect to your experience. Your experience of contraction is about fear.
You have Capricorn South Node and Cancer North Node, squared by Saturn in Libra. South node carries the heart memories — feelings, attitudes, habits — incurred from our former lifetimes, and these feelings, if unconscious, can trip us up and hold us back from growth in our current one. Yours is the signature of a soul who has spent a number of lifetimes in difficulty and hardship. Imagine being in a bleak or dire situation for an untenable amount of time, around people for whom you were expected to be the mature, stoic, capable one. Imagine how lonely and futile life might’ve felt for you… and from there, it’s not a big leap to envisage how easily a sort of pre-emptive defeat and depression might work its way into your consciousness in this life– especially when good, expansive, wonderful things begin to happen for you. That’s when contraction sets in.
I mentioned fear earlier. Contraction is fear. When we pull back, make our selves smaller, turn away from the light, we’re afraid. Yours is an old, ancient, fear –about things going wrongly, badly, or nowhere at all. This is very good news, because it’s just a habit and habits can be changed.
You asked what still needs to shift to receive the good in your life. Acknowledge the good is actually and really there, I mean here. It’s all right here! And its yours! Own it. Gravitate towards things and experiences that make you feel good. Invite the attitude “I’m the kind of person that good things happen to” into your being. The more you affirm this, the more that old emotional undertow of fear and despair will lose its grip on you, each time dissolving by one more degree.
