Road to Resilience — Full Moon Libra

There is no way out, only through.

There is no where to go, but into.

The path of resilience isn’t ever really up to you.

All that you try to do, be or overcome is not the whole story or even the beginning of knowing what already lives inside you.

There are two I’s in Resilience and it takes more than just you to move, to trust and to carry on.

This means that ultimately when walking the path of resilience it requires company.

For when you are shattered across the road, dismembered into millions of pieces, there must be someone or something there to gather you.

Your will alone is not the thing that will save you.

You can not do it alone.

In fact, you never really are alone.

Only in your mind I suppose but even than you have company.

Come with me now.

Down this road of least resistance, on the path of discovering true resilience.

The sun is setting, and you have been walking down a deserted road.

Only forest around you and a dirt road below you.

You have been walking for days, maybe even years.

Its hard to tell, as time has no meaning on the road back home.

The night sky begins to cover above you.

The trees begin to wrestle in the cold breeze moving through the forest.

Just in front of you, the road splits off into three different directions.

You are standing at the crossroads.

Looking to your right, you notice that this road is covered in mud and has footprints and animal tracks running through it with the sun still shinning down.

To the left, the path is dusty and has fallen trees scattered across it and stretched far off into a dark horizon.

In front of you, is just a forest.

No path, no signs, no footprints.

Now close your eyes for a moment.

Feel your feet on the ground.

Your heart in your chest.

Your breath in your mind.

Speak out loud “Show me which path to follow”

Now open your eyes again.

Standing in front of you, is this incredible person or something.

Begin to imagine, feel, sense or taste this something that wants to help you. It feels familiar to you.

It feels like its a part of you, or something that has always been there.

Now describe it with your senses, give it a face or a color or a symbol.

Now ask them “Show me which path to follow.”

They do not move or speak.

Feeling frustrated or concerned that this is all in your imagination.

Begin to go down the path to your left.

Your feet start to kick up all the dust and the air becomes unclear in front of you.

Soon you can’t see anything and all of a sudden you fall over a stump in the road.

You flashback to an old memory of when you felt hurt, broken or confused.

Allow yourself to remember.

Now imagine, that person or something reaching out there hand and helping you get up. They dust you off and take you back to the beginning.

Again you stand there and ask “Show me which path to take?”

Once again, they say nothing.

So you take the road to the right.

You start walking through the dense mud and notice that your feet get stuck.

You are unable to move.

You notice all the tracks around you. How easily they were able to move over the mud, to make their tracks, to follow their path.

And here you are, stuck.

You get angry and frustrated.

There is this thing or dream or goal that you have been trying to work towards but you feel stuck.

Name it.

What is it?

Scream it out loud if you have to.

With all your will power, you try to push through it.

With all that anger, and fear and pain you give each step everything you got.

You become tired, fast. Exhausted and overwhelmed. You notice how hungry and thirsty you are and how much time has passed as now the sun is set.

When you look down the path you realize you haven’t moved any closer.

In fact you are still stuck in the same spot you started.

You let your body fall down in the mud.

You have nothing left to give, no will left to try.

Before a tear can be shed, your friend comes to your side.

They gently lift you out of the mud and take you back to the beginning.

You stand there, unable to look down the paths.

Defeated, exhausted and unwilling.

You ask again “Show me my path.”

When you look up, they are gone.

Only now, the Full Moon has risen and shines its light through the forest floor illuminating a possible way through the forest.

You feel your new friend behind you.

Whispering “Let your heart be in your legs and trust the light that guides you.”

Stepping onto the moonlit path, you feel life return to you.

As you follow it into the deep unknown, you know that its taking you back home.

Resilience is not about being strong, or overcoming tragedy with willpower. Its not about picking yourself up when everything has been taken away and left you shattered. Saying “I refuse to be scarred, I refuse to let that person, place or thing get me down.”

No. That is not strength.

It is about allowing people to love you in all your ugliness, pain, beauty and suffering and still be there at the end of the day.

It is about laying on the ground not knowing how to get up, not knowing how to move forward and being so lost that you have forgotten your own name and to let someone or something remember for you and help you to get the fuck up.

True courage comes from allowing yourself to be grief stricken from the tragedies and to fall deeply in love with hope.

It is a willingness to stay open, to see the pain of the world and still say “Yes” to being alive.

This path of being human in a world of so much suffering is to reach out your own trembling hand to someone else that may need you.

We are in this together.

Full Moon Prayer

Please remember me

in your dreams

of what could be

and all that I

will become.

Please remind me,

of the path

we follow

and the songs

that welcome us

back home.

For we do

not wander alone.

Full Moon Musings

Now you’ve traveled down the roads. Take a moment to write it down. First describe who this someone or something that is helping you on your journey home. What was your old memory that made you fall down? Write it out and notice if it feels like its getting in your way or making you believe something that is no longer true. What is your goal or dream? Is it yours? Or is it someone else's? Or are you trying to do it like everyone else? Now take those experiences and begin to imagine this new path you are taking and where it maybe leading you? Allow it to lead you back home but home, is what your imagined outcome is, so describe it as if its fully developed. What is the foundation, what holds it together, what are the walls made of, what color, how big, who lives in it? Make this a free flowing writing exercise, not a perfectly grammatically designed draft. Allow the pen to write from your imagination. Allow yourself to be surprised. When you feel complete, put it under your pillow and ask your dreams to show you the path. Let it be part of your nighttime practice until the next New Moon. And so it is. Blessed be.

Nicole Marie is a Storyteller + Astrologer sharing with others on how to become the storytellers of their own life. Join her on the Embodied Storytellers Podcast and learn more about her offerings at Nicole Marie Astrology