Independence of a kind….

Here we are in week 15 of the lockdown with independence day approaching. The number 15 creates its own rules to accomplish harmony, and I guess you can acknowledge some are already creating their own rules, if crowded beaches, street parties, and football supporters celebrations are anything to go by. This number is also about personal responsibility, home and family, and many are now meeting up for the first time since restrictions were imposed. The 15 essence includes health, healing, and domestic activity. Love, beauty, and comfort are important, but the family is most important of all. 15’s energy contains a maternalism that extends beyond the immediate family to neighbors and visitors -it’s a caretaker. The number also has a sense of adventure and a versatile wit. And there’s a determination to express all of one’s own existence, which leads me to question what we mean by the ‘new normal’.
Outwardly, the new normal will be recognizable by the wearing of masks, social distancing, and meeting restrictions on the one hand, and increasing traffic and noise on the other. Inwardly it’s a different ball game. Last week I was talking about habits and how the loss of routines have affected our we are functioning on a day to day level and fearful of change as the lockdown eases. The UK is about to get its own version of Independence day celebrations -and lets be fair, some positively good vibrations being released into our communities. Anticipation to regenerate some of those habits and routines…. But what has been happening inwardly to change our expectations, desires, and needs?
We’ve had more time on our hands, and whilst it’s true to have caused a process of rethinking priorities, it has more positively created ‘spaces’ in the personality mind, which in turn have been filled by desires (and hopefully needs), we haven’t allowed focus on in our otherwise busy lives. For some that will be creative expressions -anything from garden care, home décor, to expressions of crafts and arts. For others, the so-called rethink will be looking at interests, personal or work, in a different way than hitherto. Many people have been remembering their dreams, which can be a mix of unsettling ‘events’ and strange inexplicable images that stimulate or make one fearful. Then there is the lack of practice fear -can you do the same or better than before, or will your nerves jangle with a feeling of emptiness as you prepare to get back to some kind of normality?
If we look closer at the number 15, we see that it’s associated with the 15th card of the Tarot, which many believe to be the most negative card in the deck. The Devil is associated primarily with sensuality and ego (remember Lucifer wanted the other angels to worship him instead of God). However the card is more about change -karmic change. The antidote to excessive ego characteristics is inherent in the 15th number of the I Ching, usually translated as Humility or Modesty. Commenting on this oracle, Confucius says: “The Superior Person takes from where there is too much and augments what is too little. That way all things are apportioned correctly.” This refers to keeping a sense of mindfulness and balance over all of life’s situations.
So, given we have inwardly changed, no matter how the new normal looks like a return to the previously known ways -it won’t be. Our priorities will be different, subtly so in many instances but there will be moments when we herald change and show a new face to the world, be they in personal or workaday living.
History shows us there have been numerous pandemics, some very recent which have not consciously intruded into your day to day life, others of such magnitude and loss of life, to make Covid-19 look minor. What happens as a result of these traumatic changes, and that also includes the horrors of war, is the psyche in all of us individually undergoes fundamental changes. These changes will not consciously manifest overnight, but they will surface nonetheless. We can expect even in the local environment of our lives changes that will be embedded into our futures.
The poem I’ve written for you this week is about time sort of standing still, and how that can make us inwardly aware we cannot truly possess or determine how life and love shapes our souls.

The Seize of Time

Walk with me through the green gate
past the ivy clad barn, the rusted plough,
there let us take shade from the sun
under the spread of the sycamore tree.
Nearby, the gnats cloud the sedge pond

buzz in harmony, chicken’s coop,
geese cackle, and the farm dog barks.
The clack of a hand-turned butter churn
can be heard from the house, the smell
of baking bread wafts in the breeze.

In the far wet-field, revs of a tractor
sound as we sit midst forget-me-not’s,
coriander, dandelion, thistles, and
milkwort, mosses, and warm grass.
Laughing, and making daisy chains.

Out of sight beyond the fields
a distant bell toll seizes time.
Moments that will never age
forever live –of love’s breath
that never shall or can possess.

My thanks to replies I receive -and everyone I reply too. The intention to recover and make a better world is a theme most often central to emails I receive. Stay healthy and you will stay safe. As always I include a link for the self-healing recording, feel free to pass it around to whomever you wish. https://www.holistichealthuk.co.uk/guided_self_healing_cd.php

This is the UK lockdown profile of weeks. First published on email 300620