“The child in each of us
Knows paradise.
Paradise is home.
Home as it was
Or home as it should have been.
Paradise is one's own place,
One's own people,
One's own world,
Knowing and known,
Perhaps even
Loving and loved.
Yet every child
Is cast from paradise-
Into growth and new community,
Into vast, ongoing
Change.”
~ Octavia E. Butler, ‘Parable of the Sower’
What is our relationship with change? Not so much what needs to change, but how we engage with it, what it means to us and the eyes with which we take in the big picture and open ourselves to the new. This reading felt like it outlined a dynamic shift of why we even change and a freedom not brought about by the change but with the ability to.
To see new constellations from the same stars, to connect the dots in novel ways, to become in a different way, is much of what this energy points to. Not because the old way was wrong, but because it’s time. It feels like an experiment, a game, something that we’re trying, with no idea what the result will be, but that’s the point of it – we do it because we are free to and because it’s the way we honour every past version of ourselves.
Through this lens, restlessness and the urge to change can feel uncomfortable, but they also carry the potential to liberate us. This reading speaks to the freedom we have. We reclaim that freedom, by not being bound by who we have been. In that sense, anything we do filled with wonder, awe and not knowing, any detail we pick in the chaos of what is being seen, heard and experienced now, is an opportunity to be free and be the embodiment of freedom.
As I was writing this, I remembered a song I created in November 2024. It was inspired by a book I had just finished reading: Octavia E. Butler’s ‘Parable of the Sower’. The world depicted in this story is brutal, and yet, even when our main character, Lauren, finds herself alone and out in that cruel, broken world, she meets and connects with others. As I reflected on the relationships of support, and how even when we have nothing, we can feel free and not alone, ‘Just Free’ was born, and I share that song below.
Lauren’s journey in the ‘Parable of the Sower’ stayed with me because, despite her vulnerability and the dangers she faced, there was a sense of purpose in how she navigated the chaos. Her belief system, Earthseed, reflects the Jupiterian energies in the reading, as it is built on the notion that ‘God is Change’. Earthseed offers transformative insights, like, “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change.” It reminds us that change is not just inevitable but divine - woven into the very fabric of existence. As Lauren reflects, “The world is full of painful stories. Sometimes it seems as though there aren’t any other kind, and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees”. In the same way, this reading invites us to see change as the ultimate act of creation.
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