The Step Before Reinvention

There’s been a lot of big astrology happening over the past few weeks.

Last week alone there were four initiations of new cycles. Plus we’re in the middle of a Mercury retrograde.

It’s all been happening in the sign of Libra. For me, Libra is my first house — the area of life that is about the self.

Who I am. How I present to the world. What I’m here for. Why I’m here.

My motivation for being.

This planetary activity feels potent, especially coming on the heels of the Jewish New Year holidays.

It feels like I’m being invited to create the next evolution of myself.

This is the activity of the autumn season. Harvest, sort, assess, release. Libra’s symbol is the scales: weighing everything, adjusting, rebalancing.

I have been in the dark corners in the back of the closet of my life.

Trying on the clothes to see what still fits and what I have outgrown.

Assessing and evaluating.
Sorting and sifting.
Reviewing and releasing.

What is working? What is not working?

What is taking up space and energy that I wish to reclaim for other purposes?

What do I need to let go?

Nothing is exempt from review.

• physical possessions
• ideas and projects
• relationships
• commitments
• expectations
• assumptions
• beliefs
• thoughts
• stories
• rules
• habits and behaviors
• ways of being
• ways of working
• ways of speaking
• identities
• fears
• judgment
• shame

This type of review requires radical honesty. It requires creating space. It mandates a willingness to look, see, and feel. And above all, to trust.

Trust that I can hold what arises. Trust that I will be safe when I let it go. Trust that I will be supported in the emptiness.

I look at the things I don’t want to see.

I strip away the layers of protection I’ve piled on to keep me safe.

I sit with the discomfort of facing the parts of myself that I don’t want to like.

I sit in the emotions I’d rather not feel — some of which I’ve spent a lifetime avoiding.

I feel them. I hold them. I thank them.

Every possession, every project, every habit, every way of being, every belief, assumption, rule, and expectation, is a piece of me.

Everything I have, everything I have done, everything I am, served me at some point.

Behaviors I want to shift arose as adaptations to help me survive.

Even the fear, even the shame — even the instinct to turn away from what’s uncomfortable — are in themselves survival mechanisms.

I hold space for all of it.

And I grieve.

I grieve all I have let go and that I am letting go.
All that was and no longer is.
All that never was and never will be.
Unmet goals and abandoned dreams.
Hopes for a person I never became and no longer want to become.
The expectations for who I could have been.

I grieve even the fears. Especially the fears.

Thank you fear, for alerting me to dangers. Thank you for the hyper vigilance you created in my bodywhen I didn’t have the resources to be with the pain. Thank you for being my friend and keeping me safe.

Connected to everything I release is a part of myself — an identity that no longer fits me.

I grieve her too.

When tears come, I allow them. I welcome them

Like a cleansing rain that washes away pollen, the tears clear the residue left behind by all I was holding.

In the emptiness of the dark void created by the clearing, I begin to see the light of my essence.

---

purge what you’ve outgrown
clear out what no longer serves
let it go and grieve

deep in the darkness
your essence has been shining
let your light emerge