Sit with me in the Great In-Between by Shelley H

In a time of great upheaval, in this the season of change, let us take solace in the story of Persephone - a beloved Goddess to many of us. Persephone, once a demure maiden of the Springtime, took the risk to descend into the depth of the Underworld, leaving behind what was familiar and safe - a journey which transformed her, and made her a wise and formidable Sovereign. Unlike Persephone, risk can be a scary thing to us mere mortals, we all fear change in one way or the other. We fear the loss of control, and we clutch tightly to the comfort this sense of control seems to give us. However, Demeter - Goddess of the Grain and Mother to Persephone, would come to find that even Her perception of control was only a delusion, waking one day to find the daughter she thought she knew had changed into someone she no longer had agency and control over (insert the parallel of our current socio-political climate). 

The Eleusinian myths help us confront the great mysteries of change, death, rebirth, the ebb and flow of time, and the seasonal cycles on our Earthly plane, but in the vastness of space, it is the Planet Uranus who rules over the little earthquakes of our lives. So my friends, I invite you to take a deep breath, buckle your seatbelts, as we further explore what I’m sure you are already feeling - the time of the great change is here! 

Uranus the planet of great awakening and revolution entered Gemini July 7th - and we are all in for the quick moving, quick thinking time of our lives! As a Virgo Sun-Gemini Moon, I love this energy, but for those of you not as familiar with the joy of the Mercurial realms, let’s ease you into the advancement of radical ideas, new ways thinking, expanding our consciousness, curiosity and learning, sudden changes, and shifts in ideas about community, neighborhoods, and peer relationships that is sure to come.

I can’t promise you comfort during this major planetary once-in-a-lifetime transit, that is simply not what Uranus does. But I can promise that the world as you knew it is over, and a new world is being born right now! We are officially in the IN-BETWEEN - the remains of the world we once knew are up in flames, but the new paradigm is still waiting to be born. 

Remember all of those moments in your life where you envisioned a better world - well friends, this is it! This is when we make that vision a collective reality! So let’s sit together in this liminal time of paradox and move forward together letting go of the old, outdated, toxic, patriarchal nightmare of the past - let’s embrace the discomfort, and unfuck humanity and the world we inhabit! 

So let’s start by learning to sit in the in-between - which is challenging in-and-of itself, because the paradox of moving forward is letting go of our preconceived notions of what progress looks like. Kore (the Maiden identity of Persephone), did not know what realms of potential she was entering as she became the Queen of the Underworld - and neither do we know what lies ahead. Sitting in the discomfort of this in-between can feel terrifying - but here, beneath the chaos of the world is the stillness of incubation - and stillness and quiet are necessary to rethink, relearn, and reexamine our beliefs so that we can be surprised by the new answers we find in the burning down of the old. This transit is about cleansing our minds of delusion and disillusionment - just like Demeter had to.

Helping us out here is the Goddess most associated with the solar Virgo energy of the Autumn Season - Demeter. Coinciding with these major outer planet energy shake-ups (Uranus in Gemini, Pluto in Aquarius, Saturn and Neptune in Aries - both retrograding and direct) is this year's formidable eclipse season highlighting the purification, cleansing, realignment, and decluttering energy of Virgo. Virgo sometimes gets a bad rap for being perfectionistic and hypercritical by nature - (as a recovering perfectionist I can attest to this tendency), but the underlying nature of this energy is conscientiousness and a true abiding desire to create a better world. 

We need Virgo to help us make positive, productive change in our lives - to cleanse out the old, reassess and make way for the new. Virgo is the Mistress of the Harvest -  knowing the difference between what we need to harvest to nourish and sustain us, and culling what no longer serves us. 

Virgo rules over our body-mind-spirit connection that creates our physical health and understands embodiment at a cellular level - what feeds our cells, feeds ourselves. The discerning mind of Virgo highlighted under this eclipse cycle is here to help us understand this process both personally and politically in the greater culture as its delusions dissolve. What we need to create a healthier self - is also what we need to create a healthier world. The culmination of this Virgo season with the Virgo New Moon coinciding with the timing of the Autumn Equinox - is the epitome of the culling the world needs to finally release us from the toxic, barbaric, and outdated Patriarchal regime - these are it’s death throws, Demeter is here to scythe off what is dead and fallow, and Persephone is here to usher it into the Underworld for its final transformation. 

Our task then is learning to sit in discomfort that the Uranus in Gemini transit is offering. Unlike comfort loving Taurus - the sign Uranus left as it transited into Gemini and will retrograde back to and forth for a time period - we are being asked to sit in the complexity of life and find internal balance - the gift of Persephone, and the Libra season ushered in by the entrance of Autumn. To honor and learn from both shadow (that which we dislike about ourselves and project onto others - aka: all bigotry, hatred, oppression, white supremacy) and light (empathy, compassion, and kindness). To embrace duality, spectrums, and paradox - the stuff of Gemini Dreams! 

This is a time of Trickster energy - Mercury the great Roman messenger and trickster rules Gemini; and he and all Trickster Gods have much to teach us at this time. Much like Persephone, Tricksters hold the keys to understanding the greater mysteries of life - in fact they are the gatekeepers who help us unlock the pure potential embedded in these mysteries. Through discomfort they teach us radical honesty, radical accountability, and radical change - the medicine our time needs.

We often avoid discomfort at all costs - most of our common “symptoms” of anxiety and depression are a form of avoiding discomfort. Have an uncomfortable emotion = shut it down. Have something in your life you can’t control = ruminate over it so you can create a false sense of control (and turn the whole world fallow in the process like Demeter). 

Tricksters create discomfort - it’s part of their charm, they are not the comfort bringers, yet they are also far from the “chaos” makers (in our modern sense of the word, meaning “crisis”). We fear Trickster energy because our greatest fear as a collective species is the unknown. Messenger God Mercury doesn’t offer solutions - he offers the wit and wile to figure out the solution on your own - otherwise we blame the messenger and forget the message. 

Our fear of the unknown and its connection to death is palpable (the panic attack is often described as the feeling that you’re about to die - yet somehow we always survive this experience) and evidenced by the Chthonic connections most Trickers also offer as psychopomos who guide the dead past the veil (let’s all embrace Persephone as a Trickster deity). However what we fear is chaos overtaking us is actually the neutrality of the universe - we all die, the Trickster just reminds us that it’s nothing personal. 

Trickster energy is often associated with roads, borders, liminal spaces between the old that is dying and the new yet to be born. These crossroads offer us ambiguity and so we fear them - but this ambiguity is just the neutrality of the Universe, a moment of stillness for the weighing of options, and gaining new insight and perspective on the current moment in time. All things Uranus in Gemini. 

Let’s discuss Elegba to explore this point further. Elegba of the Yoruban/Ifa tradition and carried to the Americas in the African Diaspora, was the First Orisha to be created and he existed before creation itself.  As the Alpha of creation he bore witness to creation, and was offered the title of the "controller of fate”.  Yet to better understand this job title we must embrace paradox - Elegba offers us our greatest moral teachers who guide through the natural laws of consequence. He does not offer protection from our bad choices, he offers lessons so we can learn to do better. The natural progression of things - as they play out in our lives. We fear the trickers because we mistakenly believe the trickster is cruel - but the trickster is merciful in their neutrality - neither having caused you your sorrow, nor relieving the suffering you have inflicted upon yourself. They guide - like the psychopomp escorting souls into the otherworld. If anything it is the tricker that seeks harmony - balance of karmic forces is their goal. All things being equal is their motto - but they recognize the world isn’t equal and so they usher you to your greater good. 

And so, here we see what really transformed Kore the innocent, into Persephone the wise. The true descent into the Underworld is the alchemy of fear and the need for control into the embracing of the unknown, understanding the greater forces of balance and harmony that the universe itself seeks out - embracing this path as our means to our “highest good”, and the better world we all seek, and fully stepping into our Goddess Given Role as a Co-Creator of the World (aka: being a Witch).