Eclipse Season: Grief; Courage; Joy
Sometimes words fail.
It’s autumn here in the Northern Hemisphere. The heat of summer is slowly falling away, as the land prepares itself to rest dormant for the coming winter. Where I live, we are in drought. The sun is beautiful, and the plants are still (miraculously) holding on, but I have been without running water for six weeks.
And yet, I feel a sense of peace. Things are moving more slowly. My life feels full — despite the parts that still feel sharp and edgy.
And although I have a plethora of deep shifts I’ve been experiencing in myself; in my relationships, in my self-concept, in my waking life — I haven’t been able to put them into words.
I haven’t even been journalling, truthfully. Unusual for me.
And maybe it’s my autistic mind, that wants to pick apart every pattern and nuance of this particular time in Life — the symbolism, the energetics, the shifting sands of Creation — I find myself being asked to sit in feeling more so than explanation.
This — this feeling instead of describing — is not my most easily-accessible state.
As many of you I’m sure will resonate, I have been deeply conditioned to feel less. To not ‘indulge’ in the depths of my feelings, for fear they might rise up like a swelling tide and wash over others around me. That they might drown out the people I love, as well as myself. Of course, in the desire to live in the anarchy of fear and in a radical place of Love, I am working on this. I am leaning into the lessons of the Lunar Eclipse in Pisces (F E E L I NG) and am leaning into my emotions. My life, as of late, has been governed by three.
Grief
According to the rhythms of TCM (traditional chinese medicine — a system I follow closely as it was the only medical system to help me heal during the years I was too sick to work and instead started this blog from the kitchen table of my uncle’s house), the emotion associated with the season of autumn is grief.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like grief has been the one emotion I have been trying to avoid for the past three to five years. Don’t get too sad, don’t let global events get you down, don’t look, don’t look.
In a big way, not engaging in the deeply horrific aspects of this radical time on planet Earth has been healing. Life-giving, even. And although I spend my time consciously wiring my brain for joy (this is an active practice you have to do, most happy people are making a concerted effort at it), and I’m getting enough exercise, learning how to rest, and teaching my inner voice not to be such an asshole, the grief is lying there underneath the surface.
I am grieving everything that is falling away as we walk through the canyon as the realities we knew fall into the sea.
I think we need to grieve.
I think, despite all my efforts to live an honest life, and to be deeply connected to what feels true and authentic for me, I’ve been avoiding grief. and it is slowly, slowly crushing me.
And so, this season, I’ve been leaning into it. Letting the feelings of loss wash over me as they arrive. And my gosh, I’ll tell you, I don’t think I’ve ever cried so readily or openly.
But it also feels like after a lifetime of gripping onto little pieces of myself I couldn’t possibly share with the world, things are … flowing.
A brief note from my guides on the matter:
“So many of you have been holding onto the tides of grief in attempts to hold onto the Sea. This fall — these next three months might feel more watery and — slippery — than years before it, but you may just find yourself in a new state of lightness once winter arrives. Your happiness is not dependent on your ability to avoid negative emotions. Your happiness depends on letting everything wash amongst the shorelines of your being.”
Courage
A second emotion that comes in from the TCM philosophy during this time of year is one of Courage.
And to put it simply? I feel it takes a mustering of courage to allow all the feelings you hold to exist and express themselves. It takes a courageous heart to be here, right now, reading this and allowing yourself to react. It takes a courageous heart to have hope. To open yourself to love. To allow things to fall away.
Many are going to have different opinions on what this time ‘was’ when we look back on it — 40, 60 years from now. But the part that feels the most challenging? There are so many of us who are navigating through it whislt awake. We are all present in this shifting landscape. We are all feeling it. And, just when it seems like we couldn’t possibly have the capacity to hold or experience any more in our little systems of humanity, more happens upon us.
It takes courage to be Here, right now. It takes courage to seek out the light. It takes courage to stand up for yourself, to walk away from things that are ill-fitting even though you’ve convinced yourself they’re truly comfortable (this, for me, manifests in friendships). It takes courage to feel lonely and still go out in the world and smile to others.
It takes courage to be a sentient, light-carrying soul.
Let me remind you:
You are doing such a wonderful, beautiful job out There. You are affecting more positivity than you give yourself credit for. There are more people out there who think you’re a really great person, even though they may not say it or you never hear it. You are making positive change. Your effort is enough. And please, please — have Heart. Have Courage. You are so, so needed. (And loved)!
From my guides on Courage:
“Alas! Courage is something you humans hear about in films more so than you are taught to practice harnessing. The child who steps inside the mouth of the lion is not unafraid, but is harnessing a strength from within that guides her forward. She is not ridding herself of fear through her courage. She is, instead, carrying them both with her.”
Joy
Yay! Joy!
Collective energetics are funny. Often, when I receive messages from the collective, it’s in some form of wave-like download that feels overwhelmingly clear while simultaenously not belonging to me. It’s like my antennae of Spirit has changed from “Kate’s personal life” to “The Collective Good” and I’m receiving broad-sweeping messages that apply.
Joy, and the presence of the Dolphins, has not been like that.
In the galactic realms, Dolphins are imperative, revered creatures that transmit many of the lost teachings of Lemuria to healers and mystics present and alive on Earth. They are messengers, of sorts — but they also carry such unusual and far-reaching frequencies of the galactic and oceanic realms that their energies really are a frequency unto themselves.
Over the past few weeks, these little creatures have been showing up in unexpected was all over my life. There have been messages about dolphin energy from astrologers like Sabrina Monarch on her eclipse updates, from friend-healers who are taking their clients on dolphin-led retreats, and random discussions of dolphin energy on podcasts like the Giggly Squad.
The bottom line?
We need to call in galactic-like, otherworldly, unhinged joy.
Dolphins are silly. They’re a little erratic, very playful, and know a thing or two about being happy. Sabrina Monarch mentions in her video “nobody gets mad at the dolphins for being unrealistic about their joy.”
This is the kind of energy we need to be calling in.
Yes, feel the grief. Yes, summon the courage.
But also … get a little unhinged about your joy.
If my role in this live is to serve as educator and messenger, this is something that has been becoming abundantly clear for me in the past few months:
If we do not meet our challenges with an equal opposing presentation of joy in the other aspects of our lives, we may as well be putting on the badge of Matyr and going down with the proverbial ship.
We did not come to this planet to sink, Starseeds.
We came here to make change. and to Live.
Make joy a priority moving forwards and see if it starts to shift the weight of all the other things we carry. Because I promise you, we are all carrying it together.
Personally? I’ve started listening to stand-up comedy. I’m making art that is objectively bad, but makes me happy to do. And I’m learning to play the fiddle. Poorly.
But you know what? It fills me with such unadulterated joy that I feel completely undeterred by the aspects that would have previously made me shrink back.
We’re in the revolution, starseeds. Bring joy along for the ride.
My guides on joy:
“In a world that wants us to fight with weapons and war-like visions, joy asks us to bring a pool noodle to battle. Be silly in the moments that have hard edges. A genuine smile is more of a radical act than one may think.”
One step at a time, one giggle at a time, one moment of laughter at a time.
We may be sliding along the sands of a shifting collective landscape — but we are all, truly, doing it together.
Be kind to each other.
XO K8
** I’m running a FREE EVENT on OCT 17th to honour the entry into the Lunar part of the year. Dark goddess vibes, herbalism and witch craft is the vibe.
Sign up here: https://www.katelightstone.com/sauin**
→ STARSEED CLASS starts sept 23!! Drop-ins welcome. Each week we’ll talk about energetics, tools and have some social time for starseeds to connect with one another. Sign up here: https://www.katelightstone.com/bookings-1
