The Pleiades star cluster, from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Image courtesy of NASA, U.S.
The Pleiades star cluster, from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Image courtesy of NASA, U.S.

How have the past few weeks been for you? Or months? Years?

We’re dancing through our days amidst a bevy of high-frequency Energies of Now:

The ongoing Uranus-Pluto square (Sixties, Part 2 … the next rung on that spiral); plus super moons at Zero Points, various eclipse cycles, solar flares, and other dynamic Earth and celestial energetics have been seemingly perpetual, with occasional islands of calm to let us integrate the wild and crazy and all of that nervous-system-zapping energy.

These are astro-energy harbingers of significant change and, if we accept the invitation, to transformation.

The Tower Card, symbolizing significant change. Painted by Lady Frieda Harris for the Thoth Tarot.
The Tower Card, symbolizing significant change. Painted by Lady Frieda Harris for the Thoth Tarot.

And even if we don’t, if it’s ‘in our stars’, so to speak, Life will drag us kicking and screaming into transformation none the less (I say that with more than a bit of up-close-and-personal experience!).

Not everyone who gets hit over the head with the Cosmic Two-by-Fours of Change (CTFCs) says yes to the transformation. Sometimes we really are kidnapped into the Underworld, like Persephone (in one telling, anyway), because that’s just the type of initiation we’ve signed on for.

It’s understandable, really. Sometimes those Cosmic Two-By-Four Events are so stunning and havoc-wreaking that we freak out at the sheer fear-evoking magnitude of it, and get frantically busy reacting out of fear, trying to fix it and solve the problem, and please-dear-God-let-things-go-back-to-normal … despite the fact that normal is no longer there, as it happens (that’s the case with real transformation and Dark Nights, after all. There’s rarely a ‘back there‘ to go back to!).

The Sower of the System, 1902, by George Frederic Watts.
The Sower of the System, 1902, by George Frederic Watts.

That’s often what we really think we want in situations like that, though — for the life-altering change to just stop and things to go back to ‘normal‘.

That’s what we’re conditioned to do, particularly in Western cultures: Anticipate problems. Analyze the problem. Wrestle with the problem. Muscle the problem. Conquer the problem. And solve the problem, thus protecting the status quo, aka ‘normal’. Kind of a weird addiction to problems, really.

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Through the default lens, most change — and certainly transformation — is seen through the perspective of the ego-mind and cultural conditioning as a problem to be avoided and averted. Both are threats to the status quo.

Often, though, we make a bit of a mess (or a spectacular one) with our problem-solving gyrations, because the so-called solutions don’t come from wholeness — they’re more about satisfying and protecting the Ego-Identity’s schemes, ‘security’, and myriad other agendas.

Fellow Aquarii, Thomas Merton
The Thomas Merton Center

In the Uranus-Pluto, Mystic-birthin’ spirit of the times, here’s a different perspective on ‘problem-solving’.

The Aquarian writer, mystic, teacher, and Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, wrote:

“The true solutions are not those which we force upon life in accordance with our theories, but those which life itself provides for those who dispose themselves to receive the truth.” (p.35)

“One of the strange laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: you bear with them until they somehow solve themselves. Or until life itself solves them for you.”

“Usually, the solution consists in a discovery that they only existed insofar as they were inseparably connected with your own illusory exterior self. The solution of most such problems comes with the dissolution of the false self.” (p.23)

Eddie Van W's Water Reflections (Generously shared via Creative Commons - thanks Eddie!)
Eddie Van W’s Water Reflections (Creative Commons – thanks Eddie!)

The dissolution of the conditioned, not-us and thus ‘false self’ is one of the greater challenges of spiritual awakening and/or transformation (‘The Return‘ of that Hero/Heroine or Persephone Journey is another, less discussed, challenge in the transformation experience.)

The very suggestion of the dissolution of the false self is enough to drive our conditioned minds wild. Indeed, to the culturally conditioned mind, it’d qualify as true-blue Wild, Crazy Wisdom.

And with Uranus-Pluto and Pals in the mix, crazy, holy grace, revelation, cosmic insight, and wild (as in not-tamed) wisdom are exactly the point.

You’ll find plenty more on just that in the Sophia’s Children archives (most posts include links to related posts to assist you in your delving). Check out the Wake-Up Juice archives, and in the Academy of the Divine Feminine audio programs, too.

Feel free to share your voice by leaving a comment, or send me an email if you have questions or want to explore more deeply in a more personalized one-on-one consultation.

Wishing You Big Love and Plentiful Blessings.

Jamie

(This post was updated in May 2013 and again in January 2015)

Additional credits: Merton quotes from Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing, ed. by Robert Inchausti