Day 10 - New Moon on the Mind
As I write there is a New Moon in Aquarius. My Moon and North Node live in Aquarius in the 7th house, and I’ve been deeply contemplating the role relationships (7th house vibes) have and have had in my life. If you were to take a peak into my past, you’d see a track record of my self-abandonment in intimate relationships. You’d notice the ways I’d unconsciously collude to become like whomever I was dating at the time and how I would morph into whatever role I deemed necessary to be loved and accepted. I’ve always had the ability to be chameleon-like, a blessing and a curse as a Reflector (my Human Design Type). You’d also acquire the intel that I’ve spent many moons trying to fit in to feel some sense of belonging.
I recognize this is not a completely unfamiliar thing to our society as sameness seems to be implicitly encouraged and yet adopting “mono-culturing” and celebrating only certain ways of being is what is killing our diversity, which is necessary for a thriving ecosystem. Think about the diversity of a jungle, its biodiversity is what encourages its vitality. The same goes for the soil beneath our feet or the digestive system in our bodies. When we destroy the microbiome, the Earth doesn’t grow nutrient-dense plants and our bodies don’t process food the same way. The more we feed into the mediocrity of life, the more we strip this planet of its richness, the juice.
The fact that you exist is an absolute miracle, and yet so often this profundity is forgotten amongst the bombardment of bullshit that would have you believe otherwise. A newer teacher of mine, Zhenevere Sophia Dao, said today in class, “when we don’t believe we are unique we move in imitating fashions and do what we believe will bring attention”. She shared it is our responsibility to be who we are and to not miss our destiny because of distraction.
One of the many reasons that I believe wholeheartedly in living your design is that Human Design is the Science of Differentiation. It shows us how to be different and accepts that we are all extremely different beings that are here to live wildly different lives. It says, “Oh that weird thing you do? Yes that’s to support your sacred tasks in this lifetime” or “I’m sorry you’ve spent so much energy trying to be something you’re not. You don’t have to choose that anymore.”
When I found out about Human Design in 2016, I was weighted by ways of being that I’d shlepped onto myself. My true self was hiding behind masks that I thought were appropriate or acceptable at some point. I was confronted by the information shared with me as it wasn’t conducive to the life I’d created by trying to be someone I wasn’t. “You have to wait ~28 days to make decisions”, I remember being told. The immensity of this statement did not compute. As someone who’d thrown herself into far too many enthusiastic engagements that were not of my ideation, I began to feel the sting of countless disappointments. Could it be possible that in each of these circumstances, I just hadn’t known to wait for my own personal clarity? I didn’t understand the mechanics behind the process, but something tender had been poked.
I didn’t stop being prodded by this body of wisdom, and soon it came time for me to give this whole “wait for a lunar cycle” thing a try when I moved to New York City in October 2016. Without going too far into how this initiation came to be, I checked in each day from the end of August through September, and sure enough, this intention snowballed and landed me in Brooklyn on October 12th, 2016. This experiment was the first of many that I have since experienced, and the process of deconditioning how I think I should be living versus being true to what I know in my bones has been nothing short of astounding and confronting.
The amount of distractions available at the tip of your fingers is enormous, and I’ve found most are looking outside of themselves for answers. When the endless threads to pull upon seem daunting, the most powerful way I know to discern and find clarity is to look within. I believe that listening, attuning, and trusting oneself are some of the greatest capacities one will ever cultivate. These skills have been core to my personal journey, and in turn, have become what I support so many of my clients with. Having lived my Human Design experiment for just over 7 years, I am continually awed and occasionally stunned by my own self-advocation.
So how does this all tie back into my contemplation with relationships?
As I’ve cultivated the relationship I have with myself, the way I relate to others has changed significantly. By understanding my own operating system, I’ve been able to navigate interpersonal dynamics without falling off my center as easily. I have a sense of what is me and where the lines might start to blur. The awareness I have provides a solid foundation that I have built beautiful connections upon. Something I’ve been personally intrigued by is why we do this whole relationship thing. Not because I don’t like or “believe” in relationships, far from it. More so I find there is a deep motivation in me to understand all the ways that relating occurs. What drives people to connect beyond their biological impulses? What forms can a relationship take? Why marriage? Why labels? Why certain roles? What do people do because it’s just expected of them? At what point is something no longer unconventional or taboo? I realize there may be logical answers to some of these questions, but I’m far more interested in hearing personal examples.
I’ve been experimenting and rewriting my own personal manuscript for relationship with a man, and it would seem I have more questions than answers from what I’ve written so far. What I do seem to know is that “committed partnership” is currently not interesting to me, and yet the grooves of this orientation are deep within my psyche. I have found that labeling whatever it is that we’re doing has felt limiting and that when I’ve talked about the ambiguity of this dynamic with other people it seems to elicit discomfort and flustered feedback from those who have had unhealthy experiences in relationships. I notice some older generation folk I’ve spoken to think it’s either on or off with little in-between. The one thing the two of us have concluded is that we are orienting our connection to “relationship as a healing container”, which I’d say we are still activating unpacking what exactly that means. Having a context and clear communication with one another has been incredibly important and is a continual growth edge. When the orientation is healing, everything that is not healed has enjoyed coming to the surface so while the connection has been deeply nourishing and powerful, it has also been wildly challenging at times too. To me, “relationship as a healing container” requires both parties to be responsible for their experiences, to be honest, to advocate for themselves, to be self-aware, to make amends if the ball gets dropped, and to listen…so much listening. Even though it’s challenged me in innumerable ways, I’ve been finding immense delight in the liminality.
Welcome to the inside of my brain today. Reflections of self-abandonment and the path to self-attunement and self-trust, relationships as a healing container, how Human Design can change your life, and so much more. I hope these last few hours before the Rave New Year/Lunar New Year find you in reflection and ready to write your dreams on this new blank slate.
