“As you proceed through life, following your own path, birds will shit on you. Don’t bother to brush it off. Getting a comedic view of your situation gives you spiritual distance. Having a sense of humor saves you.”

~ Joseph Campbell

Twenty some odd years ago, I participated in a graduate art therapy workshop designed to explore our personal masks.

As my mask was drying I went through feeling suffocated, trapped, anxious, pretending none of the above was happening…to eventually settling into a semi-peaceful space. Then, I repeated the process and completely freaked out when it was time to have the mask removed.

I was slammed to the shore of my resistances.

Of course I survived the experience and wrote a lovely poem—it was what I did and still do. I write about it. Only now, I share what I write.

Lucky you…I hope.

My mask dried and I had the opportunity to transform it into what I thought my mask said about me.

I painted it half yellow and half blue; I added the Sun and the Moon. The stars were my forehead. I had a subconscious vision of soaring along the Milky Way with an open heart to the portal of the universe.
Little did I know, decades later, I would be learning about Vedic Astrology.

The Moon resides in my natal first house and the Sun resides in my natal seventh house. The first house is the mind and self. The seventh house is about relationships.

“The first house indicates our basic self-expression in life and our appearance in the material world.  In Sanskrit it is called tanur bhava, which means the house of the body. The Moon shows how we relate to others, how we appear on a social level to friends and family. The first house, aids in all our actions, particularly career, vocation and dharma, because it establishes our self-identity.

The seventh house is known as house of the partner….It is the main house for judging marriage and relationships. It is the house of love and passion and represents long-term committed relationships rather than romantic infatuations.”

~ David Frawley, Astrology of the Seers

The Moon is in the shadows of the Sun. I live in the shadows of relationships and it is right where I am supposed to be. I lean to the left and then to the right, into a trajectory holding out my hands unwittingly to the challenges that slam me to the shore, this time to my restoration.

Just like the mask being removed twenty years ago, I’m sloughing off the rough stuff.

It’s not a gentle process; it’s uncomfortable as hell but now I usually see it coming.

Granted I still reside, too often, in a mind-fuck, an unhealthy but familiar cognitive place of surreal dissonance. The foreground and background activities of life are a projection. Nothing really matters. When I resist, I create more out of nothing and turn it into hell.

“Let it go,” screams the voices in my heart.

I fervently believe this life is here to teach us. We are learning in all that we do from the people we meet, resist, trust, enjoy, laugh and cry with.  Once we understand that our very being is energy and we learn to resist less, we allow our circuits to clear.

In each and every moment there is a reason for our interactions, situations, calamities and joy to ultimately achieve our personal dharma.

Our minds are barely used to their fullest capacity and it’s a concerted exercise to delve past the surface of bullshit. We slog through the mire of our day-to-day journeys often without seeing what is really there. This is the stuff we project, interject, triangulate, transfer, counter-transfer and take too personally every day.

When we acknowledge this pathological interaction and disengage from our personal drama…we can let go. We can stop being part of the: what ifs, why nots, and why is it so fucking unfair?

It’s when we can flush the shit, minute by minute, that we can move on.

Some messages seem so obvious while others will echo throughout our lives until we get it right.

We can shy away and fade like a wilted leaf or learn.

The choice is ours; the universe seems to take note and finds different ways to reach us if we are willing to see.

If we keep pursuing through the layers of our ebb and flow there we will find the sketch of our pure self.

I can see a paintbrush stroking the fibers of my core. The light strokes are mixed with textures and harsh realities.

Not all colors are golden; darker shades are equally as vivid and intensely beautiful.

It’s the shading that brings depth.

I choose this incredibly challenging, obstacle ridden, insanely passionate path where my heart breaks open and I learn to let go and be who I am.

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Ed: Bryonie Wise