Its been a super-intense week. First, a crash into…what?…intense physical pain, overwhelm, leaden emotions the likes of which I could hardly remember (though I knew their demeanour well enough to realise we had met before); this all came from nowhere while I was busily, happily going about my work. Intense food cravings followed by complete loss of appetite. Dizzy spells, insomnia, ear-ringing, eye-ache, intense chest pains, headaches, mystery tooth pain, knee-weakening exhaustion like a flu that never develops. Full moon, solar flare, mercury retrograde, three days of intense geomagnetic storms, an immense filament of magnetic plasma threatening to break loose from the surface of the sun…coincidence? I’m in touch with some super-dynamic, super-tuned-in women across the globe and several of us have been experiencing the same; all particularly feeling it yesterday, watching it play out in our own unique ways. Another night of it, a long evening helping a family-member through teary turmoil; so much back pain, headache, ear-ringing; a car alarm at bedtime that wouldn’t shut up until the car’s battery was disconnected. I climbed into bed just after midnight and imagined myself as the car siren…unplugged and quiet, just for now…centred on my own integral mechanism instead of being fuelled from the outside.

These ‘outside’ energies don’t happen to us, I reminded myself; I’m not victim to them. They are mirroring us back at ourselves, the reminder of our own power, our potential, the untapped opportunities that stretch far beyond centre stage of what we refer to as life. They are the instruments of our mastery, like the knives and forks of the dinner of our life as we choose how to arrange it on our plate. These mini-traumas don’t separate us from anything, they bring us closer to ourselves. Sleep.

Awakening…a rebirth, a different feeling with the new day. Looking back, I am already counting riches gathered on the ride – at least two significant near-misses (probably more if I look harder) where I almost reacted, scaled-up, dived-into an old stuck pattern and made things far worse while the storm was raging. Not this time; I had halted in that well-worn path, written all-new endings, allowed whatever it was to have its way with me without kicking back – except, as soon as I surrendered, it was gone; obsolete, its story played out before it even started. New behaviours written, a whole new level of empowerment achieved, foundations laid, love rekindled; a rebirth.

‘La petite mort’ – the little death –  a phrase that sprang to mind as I emerged from my post-yoga shower. I knew its popular application but what did this phrase really mean. Wikipedia: “it can refer to the spiritual release that comes with orgasm or to a short period of melancholy or transcendence as a result of the expenditure of the “life force,” the feeling which is caused by the release of oxytocin in the brain after the occurrence of orgasm”. Also, according to one literary critic, “the chief objective of reading literature”, the feeling that comes afterwards – did I not refer to that very thing in my last post (life is joining dots for me again)? A spiritual release, an expansion – certainly!

These little deaths keep on coming, an inevitability, at a time such as this; like a quickening that we are in the throes of, our evolution calls upon so many rapid ‘deaths’ followed by even more quick-fire and exquisite rebirths. Its an acceleration that we asked for as our old-defunct patterns are stretched, like an under-used muscle, to the point of a thousand micro-tears that can feel like the cuts of so many knives, briefly tender and re-contracted, like the day after an intense workout; only to heal back stronger, smoother, more intact and infinitely more liberated than ever. We yawn and we stretch into our new expansiveness and strength with all the ease and familiarity of reacquainting with an old friend that we recall from…sometime before; our whole Self.

As the little wren perches on my garden wall and sings so sweetly, with such fluidity and incredible range, at the scene of last night’s relentless alarm, I notice the air feels as light as gossamer this morning. My body and soul are still a little tender and so very tired yet calm, the state of alarm gone out of them; they have both come down to settle in the same spot once again; between them, they make the sound of many notes, if even more blended and harmonious than before.

Geomagnetic storms, solar flares and other kinds of space weather ‘do’ far more than create pretty lights in the sky and disrupt radio communications (though mainstream science has a way to go to catch up with this yet…) If you suspect you are affected, it can be helpful to know what’s kicking off and when; not so that you become anxious about it but, actually, quite the opposite. The most useful energy updates I know of (and far more use than predicting if its going to rain today) are:

Spaceweather.com

Deltawaves – the ‘Tip Off’ Report from Elizabeth Peru