What does it mean to be a lover? What threads connect us to each other, to ourselves, to the trees, rocks, water, air, to our ancestors, to our pets, to wild animals, to the cosmos? How do we respect and defend our boundaries, the boundaries of others?
What does it mean to be in relationship? Are all relationships reciprical? What constitutes a reciprical relationship?
These are some of the questions we can be asking ourselves as Venus moves retrograde starting July 22. It is an opportunity to review our relationships, our stories about relationships, our wants and desires in relationship. An opportunity to connect to our heart, our beloveds, our devotions. An opportunity to find our way to appreciate and experience the one precisous life we have, and to acknowlede the ways we block, stifle, and prevent ourselves from having intimate, meaningful relationships - with others, with ourselves, with our home, our work, the trees, the air, the water, the rocks, the grass, the flowers.
The more we are able to expand what and who we are in relationship, the more we are able to acknowledge and honor our interconnections, not only with other people, not only with all our internal parts, but also with nature, with our environment, with our ancestors, with the cosmos, we begin to realize how we aren’t really alone, how the oppressive systems we are under gaslight us into isolation, separation, and worse.
While I always encourage us to examine our romantic and intimate (emotional and or sexual) relationships, I also believe it is equally important to examine our other relationships, to even begin to acknowledge these other relationships.
Our human relationships are vital. We are wired for connection, as they say. We are meant to be in community with others, to support and be supported by each other. We need our intimate relationships to connect to our sense of belonging, of being seen, of being known.
And.
When looking at our human relationships, we also need the ones that aren’t as intimate. That are more casual, the people we consider acquaintences, or even mostly strangers, are also a vital part of our sense of community, and belonging. Our mailperson, the grocery store clerk, the electricians who work for the power company are all part of our community, and we are part of theirs.
As we expand our idea of relationship, and who (and what) we are in relationship with, who (and what) is part of our community, we are pulling apart the narratives fed to us by our oppressive society and exposing more and more layers of how we’ve internalized these narratives and the ways they are impacting our lives. As we expand these ideas it becomes more and more clear how we have been lied to and intentionally separated and isolated, we begin to see in real time the ways the ruling class has encouraged in-fighting in the working class, the ways we lied to about how having more material items will make us happier, safer, the ways we were mislead to believe that the nuclear family and rugged individualism are how humans are supposed to exist, the ways we were duped into believe having a relationship with nature or our ancestors is somehow wrong, bad, or even unnatural.
Depression and anxiety are at all time highs in our society. Traditionally the mental health industry has treated these as individual disorders - issues of brain chemicals without considering the ways our environment and society is chronically traumatizing us. More and more this is changing and I know even in my own work I spend the majority of my time vailidating for my clients how yes, the world is fucked, yes most of their suffering is out of their control, and talking about various ways to cope and survive under the oppressive and abusive systems of capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy while also trying to connect to moments of joy, pleasure, and finding their ways back to intimacy and connection with others and our world.
As we move into this period of reviewing, releasing, and or recommitting to our relationships, I invite us all to look beyond our 1:1 intimate human relationships and to look at our relationships with our environment, with nature, with acquaintences and even people who are basically strangers. To push at the edges of our definintion or relationship and consider the ways be can be more intentional, present, and connected in our relating with other beings (all other beings). What this looks like for each of us will be different and with each unearthing, unfolding, and expansion we can find ourselves feeling more free, more at peace within ourselves, and more at ease in our relationships and life in general.
We’ll be examing our relationships and ways of relating during the Vensuian Embodiment Immersion. We’ll be spending 19-months coming into our bodies, regulating our nervous systems, reclaiming our bodies and lives, and unearthing and dismantling the harmful narratives that keep us disconnected, isolated, and unsatisfied in our lives. As with all my work I offer a sliding scale. We begin August 13, 2023. You can learn more and register here.
Below, for paid subscribers, are prompts, an embodiment exercise, and a couple of tarot spread for the upcoming Venus retrograde and the shift of the nodes into the Aries/Libra axis. If you would like access to these, you can subscribe with the button below.