Dear Friends,

*head shaking* We've had an interesting week of working with our Shadow shit this week.

With fires raging, local evacuations, and devastating loss here on our home front in Nevada County, things are feeling thick and rather sticky. Add on top of that the wild fires throughout the state and the shocking scenes via media of whole neighborhoods flattened. It makes our own personal needs seem trite and unimportant. This is precisely the time when our Shadows can spring to full power.

We feel overwhelmed by all of the input, even if we haven't personally experienced any loss ourselves. We have feelings and emotions that build up inside of us, and we maybe don't feel its appropriate to express them when others around us are suffering. These feelings look desperately for a way to come out and be expressed. This is when unexpressed feelings piggy-back onto a situation that we deem appropriate to express, and create volatility where normally things could be resolved easily. If you are a lady, we add menstrual cycles to the mix for what might become a Molotov cocktail.

Once these rogue emotions attach to a situation, our sense of righteous indignation creeps in, creating situations where we cling tightly to being "right" or "expressing our truth" or "insert current vernacular for processing emotions here" . What really might be happening is we are trying to process unrelated emotions, and they are just making the current situation be more important than it is; more tense, more hurtful, more threatening. This is shadow work.

When we are healers, mothers, helpers, space holders, we often want to be of help. We want to assist, we want hold space, we want to be able to handle whatever it is that our loved ones are feeling. And yet, we are having these feelings ourselves. Enter the energy leak. That slow drain, that drawing of energy, that attachment to the friends, loved ones while we try to "be there" for someone else when we aren't there for ourselves.

The world isn't going to get less crazy as time goes on. We must find tools, processes, and time where we can discharge our emotions regularly. Sorry to say loves, I don't have THE answer. There are many things to try. Ceremony, ritual, sweats, circles, inner work, exercise, hypnotherapy, meditation, and more are all part of the recipe. Each one of us will have our own recipe. Start with your curiosity and interest. Stoke that spark into a small fire. Then let it burn away all the things you collect each day that aren't yours. Let it burn till you're empty. Then listen in that empty awareness for what you need to fill yourself up. This is our job each day. It doesn't have to take long. We just must do it. For all our sakes.

With love,
Ginger {aka Rachel Lazarus}
October 13, 2017, Cult of Gemini Newsletter