New Year Reflections: Finding Meaning in the Mess
On Uncertainty, Growth, and Sharing Through the Struggle
Hello lovelies,
Happy New Year! I know I've been missing in action, and that wasn't intentional. Sagittarius season was incredibly, well, not even intense, to be quite honest. It was difficult. I wish I could tell you the earthy energy of the sun entering Capricorn brought some relief to that, but I'd be lying. If anything, it brought with it a density and solidifying of what already felt so immense and heavy. Calling it being lost in the weeds would be a colossal understatement. It's not even like I can point to specific things and think, oh, this happened, and that's why I felt like that. I just know that everything I had planned in terms of posts and videos no longer seemed relevant.
Relevant to what, you might ask? Relevant to what I want to share and create. Those of you that are astrologically savvy may point to the new moon in Capricorn or Mars retrograde, and I would understand why, but to do so would illustrate the big themes I have been grappling with for years now - the oversimplification of everything compounded by the way we communicate, frame, and understand things.
So I've been here, lost in a torrent of thoughts and feelings, unable to piece them together in a way that I would have felt comfortable sharing. Ah, but did you notice the red flag there? I said comfortable. Who said sharing has to be comfortable? Given the opportunity, I think most of us love the comfort of reflecting on an idea or situation, coming to a place of understanding and certainty about our position, and then sharing in a curated, clear way that does justice to what we are attempting to convey.
But what happens when none of that clarity or certainty is available? Do we all just retreat to our own corners and try to figure out our shit? Is the hope that somehow, unseen and unheard, we can pretend that things are still normal - whatever normal is to each of us? Do we cross our fingers and pray that this is just a passing mood? Maybe the next new moon or planet stationing direct will bring that longed-for clarity. What exactly are we trying to get clear on?
(Sidenote: Having said all that, I will be exploring this further in my next post looking at the themes of Mars retrograde.)
That part, I think I figured out, for myself at least. Meaning is what I'm trying to get clear on. There are many great thinkers and speakers out there who use different approaches, ideas, and beliefs, yet they all address the same three-step model. I most recently heard Ken Wilbur describe Jordan Peterson's ideas in this way:
Life is suffering and uncertainty.
The antidote to that suffering is meaning.
The route to meaning is responsibility.
I know I'm going big picture here, but I'll come back to the personal in a moment. Collectively, we're going through a crisis in meaning. There are as many reasons given for this as there are people talking about it. The one that I'll mention, as it relates to my interests and the work that I do, is a loss of collective myths and stories as were handed down for aeons in the form of collective religious and spiritual beliefs.
I've realised over the last few months, and probably years, that I find myself grappling with meaning in my own life. So much of that feels like it came to a head since Sagittarius season. Even before that, I found myself feeling dissatisfied, a kind of general malaise. I went to my default: what can I change? What can I do differently? But I found myself at a point where none of my old tricks worked any more. It's not enough to just move about or switch out different pieces of my life.
This is when I realised it wasn't about figuring out what needed to change, at least not yet. I have to acknowledge what has already changed, for me, at a fundamental level. Something there has already shifted, or I wouldn't find so much that once was rich with purpose and meaning now meaningless.
So, I've been doing what I advised Sagittarius to do in the Capricorn seasonal reading: shooting the arrow first and then drawing the target around it. In other words, taking action and then finding meaning in the action, because trying to do it the other way around leads to inertia and stagnation. The shadow of the Knight of Pentacles, Analysis Paralysis, as it feels as though there are no meaningful options available. After all, the advice of this Earth Knight is slow down, but don't stop.
The first week of this new year, I spent sorting out my workspace. I plastered a ceiling that hadn't received any love and attention in years and painted everything. (‘Winter Cherry’, if anyone is interested.) I moved my desk around, changed curtains to blinds. Again, I'd love to say that this organising of my space had some magical effect, and I felt clear and all ready to get on. No, it did not. If anything, I felt worse after all the decorating was done.
While I had been busy climbing up and down a ladder, wielding a paintbrush, I had felt purpose. But the days after that, as I sat at my desk feeling the urge to connect and share with you all, I completely lacked any inspiration.
So I'm here sharing where I am. I've been listening to many audiobooks and podcasts while I was decorating - more arrows released in the dark - but I wasn't just consuming content for the sake of it. I went back to a random page of my audiobook library and began to listen to some books I had listened to before and some I had never gotten around to. I listened carefully and with curiosity, and when it came time to draw the target, I realised some books and speakers totally missed the mark for me.
The point isn't to make everything mean something and hit the bullseye, but to take responsibility for when I felt they didn't. I started to connect the dots between what I felt hit the mark or had meaning for me and what didn't.
I realised the offerings I had the biggest problems with spoke very rigidly about their ideas. Basically, they seemed to say, "This is what this means, this is how it is, do this and we'll all live happily ever after." Those works came across as excessively naïve and overly simplistic.
Don't get me wrong, they were beautiful, but seemed wholly unrealistic to me. They encouraged retreating from the world into the narrow well of self. Everything has its time and place, and I guess what I'm saying without judgment is that way of thinking and being is no longer fit for the purpose.
The ones I felt drawn to and stimulated by held very few answers, but asked some amazing questions. Where the previous "unrealistic" group gave beautifully curated wishes to escape into, this group, to me, provided fertiliser for my growth - without telling me what I should be growing into - and helped me explore many ways of how I could do this.
If you're interested in an example, I would recommend Jamie Wheal, who you can find on his substack, ‘Homegrown Humans’. Jamie Wheal is very much all about the meaning crisis. He wants solutions for all of us, not just for a few or the righteous. He believes the way forward is not to go backwards to a simpler way of being where some of us win. He says the way forward is stepping up into joyful and courageous service. How? By staying awake, building things, as opposed to tearing shit down, and helping out.
Those of you that know me can probably already tell why I am so drawn to Jamie Wheal. This is why I say, if you only read one book this year, I would recommend his 'Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex, and Death in a World That's Lost Its Mind'.
I'll admit my bias. He articulates perfectly what I struggle to convey. And so much so that since this second visit to that book, I have wondered if I have any business sharing when there are people like Jamie Wheal who do it so well. But I'm here, so obviously that line of thinking didn't stick. Or rather, that line of questioning brought up a different answer. I'm committed to sharing the only thing of value that I have, the only thing that only I can share, which is the insight of my personal experience. That's all any of us can share, and it needs to be shared at all times, not just when things are going great or we have everything figured out.
So let me get really personal for a moment. Over Christmas, when I was hanging with my family, we were reflecting on 2024. I made the statement that it was the most difficult year of my life. One of my sisters expressed surprise at this, as she has seen me have plenty of difficult years. I told her I understood what she meant. Yes, in terms of physical impacts and material outcomes, it could be said that I've had worse years. But here's what I also know about those previously tough years. Yeah, awful things happened. However, I made things harder than they needed to be in the way I handled those events. I'm sure one day I'll look back and say the same about 2024. But for right now, I can say I made my year look way fucking easier than it was.
Part of the difficulty was that I didn't slip back into my old coping mechanisms when it would have been easy to do so. That's the Devil in the tarot. I showed up and showed out, even when I was holding things together by a thread. I didn't do this as a mask or to front, but because I could. I also think there is great merit to showing the thread we hang by, or in sharing the struggle. Here's the thing no one tells you about the Ace of Cups, and something I only figured out recently. It's not a cup. It's a colander. (Another image courtesy of Jamie Wheal.) What's in your cup is a great question, but why or even how is it in your cup is a better observation.
If you hold a colander under a tap of gushing water, it will fill, it will even overflow, but take away the water and very rapidly the water drains out through the holes. In that sense, is the Ace of Cups more about our capacity to hold what's in the cup? The drought I experienced in 2024 allowed me to truly have a full cup, but I had to get on with plugging up those holes. So I'm able to hold more, and yeah, it's difficult to do that, and it's an ongoing process. But that's meaning in action. 2024 means that to me because I drew that target around where the arrow landed.
Why share this? Because I know I'm not alone. I mean, I literally know I'm not alone. I talk to a lot of people, and even more people than that talk to me. I know it wasn't a difficult year for everyone. In my group of friends, several have had the best year in decades. They are starting 2025, ready to build and expand on the momentum of 2024. The vast majority of everyone else though, are starting this year feeling lost and uncertain. Liminal spaces will illicit that response.
The old ways just don't work for so many of us. So many have shared how they are ready for change - real, wholesale change, not tweaks. Yet even with this desire for change, many have shared they feel an almost ominous sense of this being the calm before the storm. Honestly, I think we'll all get what we wish for in the change department, but what that change will mean, that's on each of us to figure out. We can explore topics together and help each other to find meaning. For me, this means when I don't know how to say it or when my cup is haemorrhaging my so-called emotional and spiritual growth, that's when I need to speak more. Even if what I say makes no sense, my example of speaking during those times will be the valuable part and maybe encourage someone else to share. Then together, we can weather these storms.
So little makes sense these days, and in it's own way, that makes sense if nothing else does. But I also know we'll be okay navigating these times together. On Discord, I shared a list I made about what I desire from this work that I do. I will share it here with you:
Mutual human connection.
Purpose.
Moving from a 'need-take' mindset to 'offer-receive'.
Exchange of value.
Value = the insight of our personal experience.
Sharing the exploration of a topic together, rather than just creating content for consumption.
I know you see me, even when you do it silently. Now let us see you. The gift of your personal experience is what the world needs most right now - not despite your uncertainty and lack of clarity, but because of it. Too many are dangerously certain, and only the known brings that kind of certainty. But we are capable of so much more, and embracing our questions with openness, vulnerability, and togetherness is what will get us there.
I had no idea where to start this post, so I will admit I pulled a card to help guide me. It has been sitting on my desk as I have been scribbling all this in my journal (I always use pen and paper when I want stream of consciousness writing). I will leave you with the message from that card, from the Oracle of Mystical Moments.
22 ‘Like A Bird’. Keywords: Focus, Forward looking, Possibilities, Motivation.
A woman full of expectations looks into the future. There are no boundaries to what she can accomplish. Like the bird next to her who flies strong and direct, she knows now is the time for focused energy. You may have found yourself losing motivation lately or questioning your decisions. The key to recapturing your passion lies in readjusting your focus to unlock creativity. Surround yourself with activities or people who make you feel inspired. They can be the breath of wind under your wings.
