while in reverse

while in reverse –

Both San Diego winters & this quasi-lockdown are so inadequate as rites of passage. Traditionally, winter weather forces hibernation just like March 2020’s stay at home orders.

With crystal clarity.

And because we live in a mirrored reality (or one of cause/effect; you choose your POV), when in physical retreat, our psycho-spiritual selves turn inwards.

It’s not so straightforward here & now.

Mercury goes retrograde and while we know the advice of re- re- re- we live in a society where everything protrudes outwards like the belly button of a pregnant woman. Always wanting summer, always wanting to ripen, always wanting to be fully formed and ready for consumption.

How can we be encouraged to rest easy or turn inward when it’s still sunny & fruit is still sold fresh at the grocery & it’s still a half-assed quarantine? When the isolation of the past year still stings like an un-scabbed wound, dressed in salt water?

I speak to us folks, who have been wintering throughout the whole year. Us folks, who have buried ourselves so deep inside our sanctuaries, temples lit up with the windows closed. Us folks, who see the light of day beckoning and us folks, who see those without fear of the frost frolicking outside anyways. How do we look outside, without fear of letting out the warmth you cultivated for so long with the doors shut?

I guess trees nor tiny animals nor big ones ask themselves this question – when or how or why even.

It’s an instinct. An impulse. An action taken as reaction to the world around them. And while there’s no planets in retrograde and San Diego never really shut down so seriously and March is the final metaphorical phase of winter anyways… midway through Pisces season…

The buds haven’t yet bursted.

It’s a false spring.

—

We visited the central coast last month. On the streets of Santa Barbara, red coral trees donned full-bodied flowers. In San Diego, the very same red coral species outside my bedroom window hasn’t yet grown a bud.

We all have our own timelines. But I’m just yearning for – aching for – the grasp of connectivity, the myth that can bind together humankind, the stories that sew our souls together. To only need wait for the arrival of impulse. To fan the flames of faith that the cycle spins on.

And meanwhile, rekindle.