Embracing our human experience
Weaving our web of creativity and connecting with our magical song
Free-roaming Estonia’s coastline on an early spring day back in 2018 when the crowds hadn’t overtaken the beaches yet. Embracing the spaciousness. Oh, how I miss that.
Note: I am talking about bullying in today’s letter. If you feel like you’re not in a state to receive this emotionally because it is triggering, maybe skip this letter. Sending you lots of love.
Hey fellow wanderer,
I’ve been contemplating Delight this past week and what it means to embody it. The two questions that emerged throughout these meanderings were:
What is the underlying fear that is driving my Seriousness?
What do I need to know to embody more Delight?
As this voyage through my Gene Keys deepens, I am connecting more and more to my very visceral revelations. A voice appears suddenly in my head and the bodily response follows. It feels like a stirring deep within my core. I see myself from above. I am separating the voice from my being which allows me to be in my body without the restrictions I’ve put on myself for years.
Maybe these visceral revelations are my Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in my 4th House - the sudden expansive messages about the most private parts of me. The 4th House is a representation of our most private Self, our home space, which is both literal and metaphorical. Either way, I am thankful for the messages that have come through.
I am safe in my body.
I have all the knowing I need in my body.
I trust my body knows.
As soon as these words appeared on the page during a morning contemplation I realised that my self-trust and self-doubt issues have always stemmed from me not trusting my body, me not feeling worthy in it, or safe occupying this space I’ve been given; this vehicle I’ve been given to explore my human experience through.
The 7-year-old Silvia who was bullied for her weight still lives inside my body. She makes herself small because she was once told that her body is not worthy, that if she was thinner she’d be worthy of being seen. I thought I had dealt with that wound but maybe it never really goes away. Maybe we get good at either ignoring it or overcompensating for it.
The bully of my 7-year-old Self had severed my connection to my body and I had allowed it. I had agreed to it. I was told that it is not OK to be in the body that I had and be seen with it. Even though I am physically no longer in that situation, my mind has tricked me over and over again into the safety of my smallness. Anything outside of those boundaries felt very uncomfortable.
Even though the bully is no longer here, and physically, I am no longer there, mentally my inner child is still living as if. As if every stare is the bully. As if every glance is the judge. As if every self-expression is my way of proving my worthiness to you.
And that is where the Seriousness stems from - the need to control my self-perception and the outcome instead of unconditionally trusting how I move through this world as my wholehearted self.
This process of making myself look at it has allowed me to come out of my ignorance and own up to my part in it all - the part I play in my own smallness. I can’t be forever playing the victim. I’ve allowed myself to be the victim in my story for far too long. It has hit a wall - the self-inflicted boundary of where my smallness feels uncomfortable.
Going back to all the versions of me and telling her that she is safe in her body. She is safe to be seen. She is safe to take up space. She is safe to be herself.
Weird and wonderful things happened outside of me a day after I had this very visceral re-membering of my body. As I sat in bed with my breakfast, my journal and the Tarot card pile, I noticed a big spider slowly making its way toward me on the ceiling. I kept glancing at it every now and again until I heard a very prominent thud on the pillow next to me.
You can imagine my shock and terror. I don’t deal well with spiders or any big creepy crawlies. I leapt out of bed, threw my morning robe off me and shook the nightie I was still wearing. I could feel it creeping on me, except that it wasn’t. Instead, it was trying to find an escape route so it ended up crawling into Nick’s pillowcase, hiding from the shock it had just experienced having fallen from the ceiling.
I ran into Nick’s room and announced to him that there was now a spider in his pillowcase. When we went to shake the pillow, the spider had vanished.
I thought that was the end of the spider drama.
As I entered the toilet at work, I noticed a spider floating downwards right in front of my face. I thought it was webbing its way to the floor but, as it turned out, it had fallen to its death after having been killed by another spider that was still on the ceiling.
I could not believe it - twice in one day a near-miss of a spider falling onto me. I knew there was a lesson in there. So I leaned on the Gene Keys and the symbolism of the animal kingdom to open up that magical door.
Turns out the spider is the Fear Key in Dream Arc, which is a sort of shamanic branch of the Gene Keys. It expands on the 64 Gene Keys with wisdom that connects us to all living creatures.
The Fear Key is representative of our Shadows. The spider, funnily enough, is the Fear Key for the Shadow of Corruption, the Gene Key 50. I spoke about this key in relation to my astrology journey.
This Gene Key, in I Ching, is the Cosmic Order, The Cauldron, the Brewing of the Magic by Feeding the Fire with Highest Intent, the Authentic Collaboration with life itself.
“When she [the spider] arrives, it is time to confront one’s phobias.” Trish Phillips
As I’m sitting here writing this, I just opened up Ted Andrews’ book “Animal Speak” exactly on the page where he talks about spiders. I just love how this world works, don’t you? When we untangle ourselves from our human dramas and our shadow struggles and instead live here now as part of this magical macrocosm, revelling in our human experience, beautiful things happen all around us.
Anyway, Andrews writes that “everything you now do is weaving what you will encounter in the future.” This is reflected in what the spider does. The spider weaves its web in the now so that whatever comes next will get allured into it. How many times have you walked into your garden in the early morning and received a face full of spider webs?
Funny, when we shake the pillow of our fears, nothing really falls out. We start to see how our mind has been playing tricks on us. We see the remnants of the web we’ve been weaving ourselves into. That does not diminish our lived experiences but it shows how the spiderwebs in our lives keep us stuck in the struggle, however that struggle shows up for us.
In the astrological chart, Gene Key 50 sits at the end of Libra and the beginning of Scorpio. For me, it is my Pluto in Libra in the Second House and my Saturn in Scorpio in the Third House.
Pluto is the underworld. It is our capacity for self-transformation and self-renewal. In the words of my teacher Britten, Pluto is “that stuff that becomes compost”, “that stuff that becomes the food that the new you uses as fuel to grow bigger and stronger.”
Saturn is our teacher, our life lessons, our boundaries. In the words of Demetra George, it is the cross of matter over the semicircle of the soul which represents our need to learn the lessons of the physical plane.
The 2nd House is all about our material security. Steven Forrest, a professional astrologer and author of “The Inner Sky”, talks about the 2nd House in correlation to our self-worth and self-respect. This can very much relate to the constant need of proving ourselves, proving our worth, but basing that worth on the external, on validation from the outside.
Personally, this narrative has been playing out for the majority of my life but I’ve never been able to find soul satisfaction that way. It always seems to come from within, when I am living in my power, in my authentic self, when I am in a reciprocal relationship with my Self.
“The 50th Shadow is the Shadow of Corruption. More often than not, we think of political and social corruption, where those in positions of authority misuse and abuse their power for the purpose of personal gain. In examining this 50th Shadow, however, we need to consider the word corruption in another context — that of data corruption.” Richard Rudd on the 50th Gene Key
The 3rd House, being a Gemini House, has very mental energy to it. It is often called the house of communication and relating. It’s how we show up in the world but also how we listen to the world around us and, in my opinion, within. I’m not sure if it is because of my Saturn there, or because my 3rd House is ruled by Scorpio, but I am often stuck in my web of deep self-harming thought patterns. By that I mean thought patterns that have a negative spiralling effect and take you to that dark place of self-doubt and imposter syndrome. My Saturn hasn’t quite figured out the boundaries between my thoughts and my Self. And this is where the data I collect and receive gets corrupted.
Corruption in Latin means contamination. It means to spoil something. It also comes from the Old French corropt meaning unhealthy. We are literally spoiling our true potential. We’re contaminating our being with our thoughts by identifying with them. And as Rudd says, it is not about ceasing the thoughts. Rather, it is about not allowing ourselves to identify with our thoughts.
The Fear Key represents the underworld we are afraid to enter. The deeper I delve into the Shadow of my Life’s Work, the more open I’m becoming to entering these dark corners of my being, and the more open are my channels to these places within me. I’m realising that the living world keeps presenting me with the doorways to these neglected, abandoned parts of me that I’d rather not inhabit.
But I’m also realising that I can’t embody this body and my Self fully until I acknowledge these dark corners and learn to accept them as part of my lived experience, as part of my human experience, my humanity. I’m starting to see how this ties into our purpose. Our purpose is to live our human experience.
A big part of my lived experience is taking this material and composting it and allowing it to fuel the me that I know I am underneath all the conditioning.
By keeping yourself small and invisible, you don’t have to face your own potential.
As I’m journeying down this untrodden path - the path of self-healing and self-empowerment - I’m allowing the whole me to be seen more. I’ve noticed that I’ve started to show up more wholeheartedly at work, in service to others, and in communication with others.
My laugh is a little louder which is the laugh of my most private self. My body language is more open which is my most private self. My reactions and responses are more spontaneous which is my most private self. I’ve started to hum more in public spaces because that’s my most private self.
I’m bringing more Delight into the public spaces I inhabit. I’m allowing the parts of me that did not want to be seen to be seen. I am leaning into living from a place of “high degree of pleasure and satisfaction”, which by the way is the definition of Delight from the 12th Century.
Personally, it means to live with spaciousness - physical, mental and spiritual. It means following my joy. It means “training my falcon to hunt” the things that bring me joy, satisfaction and fulfilment. That refers to the etymology of the word “allure”.
To live in your Delight means to attract, captivate, and allure more of what brings you joy, satisfaction and fulfilment. It means to live from a place of soul-level pleasure. It means to connect with your magical song.
Coming back to the symbolism of the spider, I am amused by the thought of using my creativity, my words as a symbol for weaving my web and alluring you into it. This very much resonates with the idea of Knot So Wild as a metaphor for the untangling of the Self and the weaving of oneself back together. It is the act of acknowledging one’s wildness, one’s wild Self.
It is me privately untangling my knots, then weaving them back together, and eventually shining a light on the newly woven web to invite you into the untangling of your knots and the re-weaving of the threads of your lived experiences. I see how this correlates to my prominent relationship between my 3rd and 5th Line - the experimentation that is then universalised through my words; the weaving of the web that allures in the fellow wanderers.
Funny how our bodies know before our minds do. This idea of Knot So Wild stemmed from my macrame practice. It was a curious play on words representing my not-so-wild Self and my love of knotting. And slowly it has started to weave its way into my life, my Life’s Work, and my Purpose, and pretty much everything I do. As if all the pieces of the puzzle are finally coming together. All the loose threads are being woven in.
I am so grateful to you, dear reader, for allowing me to share it all with you. Thank you for walking this untrodden path with me.
I’d love to leave you with a poem by Rupi Kaur that I read a couple of days ago, that, yet again, was such beautiful synchronicity. It’s from her book called “Home Body”.
today i saw myself for the first time
when i dusted off
the mirror of my mind
and the woman looking back
took my breath away
who was this beautiful beastling
this extra-celestial earthling
i touched my face and my reflection
touched the woman of my dreams
all her gorgeous smirking back at me
my knees surrendered to the earth
as i wept and sighed at how
i’d gone my whole life
being myself
but not seeing myself
spent decades living inside my body
never left it once
yet managed to miss all its miracles
isn’t it funny how you can
occupy a space without
being in touch with it
how it took so long for me
to open the eyes of my eyes
embrace the heart of my heart
kiss the soles of my swollen feet
and hear them whisper
thank you
thank you
thank you
for noticing
Til next time, dear wanderer.
Love,
Silvia
P.S. Here’s a recent podcast episode that helped me open up the door to my inner child and acknowledge the hurt she still feels. It’s a conversation on parenting our triggers between Britten LaRue and Natasha Levinger.
P.P.S. A soothing salve from my soul to yours - Noah Reid’s “Left Behind”, especially these words:
“Ain't giving up, ain't givin in/Ain't trying to run against the wind/Aint tryin to change the shape I'm in/I'm just bein left behind”