We live in a world of energy. Energy fills us from the sun. The wind, the full moon, exchanging words with another, nutrition, the movements of the stars, the movement of our bodies are all exchanges and experiences of some form of energy.
In the world of the stars, when someone speaks about Mercury going retrograde, it is often a time when clear communication goes awry, or contracts and business deals. It seems to have an element of confusing energies. From April 21 to May 14, Mercury is retrograde in a different way based on the location it is moving through. It reminds me of the difference in winds. A wind off the ocean is different from chinook winds in the mountains or winds caught in the blocks of high rises whipping around corners.
Several images came to me. One was of rowing a boat, turning it around, to row back over the times already experienced and lived, noticing it all from a different perspective. Going retrograde means to take ten steps back in order to take more steps forward. The difference with this one is that it is not meant to be a trickster and confuse matters in the present moment, by things that happened in the past. Instead it feels like a breeze on one’s face that quickens and notices things in a different way. This retrograde is rowing us back to 2019 and I’ve found it fascinating in just watching who and what suddenly appear in our thoughts or lives or memories. There is no belief system here, it is completely felt experience, awareness and quickening with new understandings.
Here’s the image experience that I had last night. I was rowing this boat back into another time, and I was a butterfly rowing. I thought for a moment, oh no, I can’t relive this. I can’t go back. And then words stopped and I began the metamorphosis of rowing myself back into the chrysalis, then back into the alchemy of green and further back until I felt the caterpillar, the lonely caterpillar re-emerge. It was fascinating to see it and remember it as a part of my journey. It was interesting to feel compassion for this caterpillar, but to suddenly see its suffering as essential and not personal but simply the way of liberation to become one’s true self. I was pulled into different dimensions of seeing situations, faces and places pass by me as locations and spaces I lived in and out of through this time period. I could feel the objective reality of metamorphasizing into this non-personal space of awareness, and then I saw the caterpillar turn the boat around again and started rowing back to the present moment, simply moving through the layers of changing back into the butterfly, rowing strong and true.
It struck me that this energetic retrograde was gifting us the gift of ourselves. To notice that life is not determined by the individual challenges or occurrences, but in the larger movement we go through to simply be our true natures, no matter what is asked of us. It was incredible to feel a great challenge or feeling or thought hit, oh no, and then lean into it with curiosity and watch what began to undo and then unfold. It was incredible to witness the breaths of our lives, the essence of being and the presence of who we are travel through any dimension, not to lose ourselves, but to be ourselves, just as we are.
We begin as whole, part of the whole, light-filled whole and then we begin moving through life encountering each day, each experience, each joy and obstacle. I loved watching this butterfly go backwards into the caterpillar to reveal itself again and again over time in different forms. I loved the experience of seeing how our energetic, etheric bodies never lost sight of its true self, its true starry essence, even though different garments were worn. The joy is to imagine that throughout our lives we experience ourselves as many things on Earth and at the same time, inwardly we carry this essence of our true self, that shines through each and every moment.
For me this time, this Mercury retrograde time, is about noticing that we are all still whole and part of the wholeness, in whatever form we choose, which would change the world in an instance.
To see ourselves as connected to everyone and everything. To see through to ourselves, as an essence of energy and light and substance of love, always shining through the dark and the light, offers the heart to awaken to everyone else. It releases the hold of greed and power and acquisition in this earthly world, and opens the vast space of awareness where we all can sit and be and have our own being. It is a place where we can see within and behind and through the rising, rowing butterflies who have vowed to carry the presence of all light, awareness, wisdom, love, peace and beauty forward through the streams of eternity, not for one’s self alone, but to alleviate pain and share love with everyone.
Whoever, we each may be at any given moment, in our daily lives, this rowing backwards and forwards, is seemingly allowing each of us a moment to take off the multitude of earthly garments we’re wearing, allowing things to be just as they are, noticing the energy all around and within us, perceiving the vastness of awareness and being, while honouring the wholeness and connectedness in all of us. And then, when the time is right, rowing back out into the present moment, each with the strength and flexibility of our impermanent dispositions to participate fully in this one big beautiful life together.
written by Jillian RoseMary LaBelle Sophie
photographers unknown