Gemini Full Moon Reflection

Recognizing and embodying expanded definitions of LOVE.

In this final full moon of 2024, I find myself tending to a sinus infection from an overly paranoid immune system that has freaked out and protested inconsolably for four winters in a row that cedar pollen is public enemy number one.

Last year, I did the soft “let it take its natural course” approach and didn’t interfere, trusting my body to fight on her own as I cheered “you can beat this!” with less and less conviction when the infection rolled along for eight miserable weeks.

In years before that, I suffered through with false hope that this was “ascension symptoms” caused by my body not being used to living in a “higher frequency.” [ugh, cringe.] It’s ok, 2021 Ellen. New age spirituality detonated many truth bombs about colonization within many of us. She was a clownish, though necessary teacher. Thank goodness that era has come and gone.

This year, I’m surrounding myself with my friends Zyrtec, Sudafed, Afrin, Flonase, and boxes of Vicks-infused Puffs. The neti pot is locked and loaded. And I’ve got mullein mint chamomile tea for days. Fingers crossed it’s not another eight-week phlegm-fananza.

What does any of this have to do with love? Allow me to switch to another station for a moment…

This year, amidst multiple genocides and a maddening presidential election in the States, I experienced a debilitating existential crisis right around May-June. As I doom-scrolled through the raging, darkening gloom on instagram, I began to question what I was doing with my life. Does healing even matter anymore when all of this was happening and nothing seemed to be stopping the violence?

I watched as activists I deeply respect eviscerated anyone who was silent about calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Then I watched as they spit back at anyone who was speaking out about their shaming and blaming.

I watched spiritual teachers who were speaking out against the Palestinian genocide get blasted for not speaking out in the “right way.”

My instagram feed turned into the rage-iest dumpster fire to end all dumpster fires. And I slowly backed away, growing silent as I observed the flames destroy relationships left and right.

Kali was alive in the collective, wielding a flamethrower in one hand, gasoline in another, a Molotav cocktail in a third, propane in a fourth.

What I was watching was LOVE in action. The fiercest, most uncompromising and protective love. The love that a mother bear displays when she snarls and attacks any potential threat near her cubs. The kind of love that unapologetically roars, “I will fucking kill you if you hurt my family!!!”

After reading this follow snippet of Luigi Mangione’s Amazon review of Ted Kaczynski’s “Industrial Society and Its Future” in Daniel Pinchbeck’s article “Capitalism and Schizophrenia”, I wonder if it’s this kind of fierce love that drove him to violence –

“Peaceful protest is outright ignored, economic protest isn’t possible in the current system, so how long until we recognize that violence against those who lead us is justified as self-defense.”

Perhaps it’s this same ferocity of love that drove Aaron Bushnell and Matt Nelson to self-immolation this year.

As a recovering people-pleaser with a tendency towards fawning, I have always had a contentious relationship with this kind of love. My love tends to look like a home-cooked meal. It sounds like soft, gentle words of concern. It wraps comfort and nurturance around those who need it most.

But this year, I was being invited to learn how to love like Kali loves. I had to learn how to protect myself and my family from those who inflicted harm. I had to learn what holding loving boundaries felt like in my body – rigid and armored – and sounded like in my voice – edgy and firm. It’s not always an inviting warm bowl of soup. Sometimes it’s harsh, biting, enraged, even threatening.

Sometimes love also looks like removing myself, stepping away, putting distance between me and the other. Sometimes it looks like not offering politeness, not saying anything at all. Sometimes it looks like taking an indefinite, even permanent, time out from the relationship.

Sometimes it looks like pulling my energy all the way back into myself and just focusing on tending to my own needs, especially when I’m feeling like my battery is draining.

Love shows up in many forms, many frequencies, many hues and shades, many tonalities and textures. And we are all holding love to the max capacity of our actively healing hearts.

What I witnessed this year with the polarization in the collective was a rejection of how love showed up if it didn’t match your own. It was judged across all lines as hate, blame, intolerance, nonchalance, avoidance, apathy.

That judgment was our collective inner wounded children crying out to our parents, “I’m not getting what I need from you! I need you to love me THIS WAY!”

What this year has taught me is that the anger, rage, resentment, despair, grief, frustration I witness in others is a kind of love that challenges me because of my wounding from a father that didn’t model expressing anger safely. But it also activates the fire in me and invites me to tap into my own fiercely compassionate and protective love. It gives me permission to embody a harsher, edgier love when I need to.

We need that loving fire to create change. But also, fire can quickly become unwieldy, so it’s important for those of us who flow with water more easefully (hello, Cancer rising here!) to also not be afraid of showing up to the fire and offering love with that cooling touch.

Now back to my sinus infection…

I’m learning to love my body differently this year, listening closely to what she needs instead of just sticking to one strategy. I came in bold, guns blazing with the meds, and now I’m softening to nurse her with honeyed tea and genuine rest (just as soon as I finish writing this reflection).

I’m also being nudged towards cleaning. Making sure my vessel, energy and spaces are sanitized, and devoting more time and energy into maintaining that cleanliness. This is also a form of love that i haven’t fully honored in my life as love and care until recently. I will be forever grateful for a life partner that loves me by taking on the bulk of this responsibility. But it’s time for me to learn to love in this way, too.

As we gently close out this year, my prayer for the collective is that we learn to honor all the ways love shows up. And to recognize these moments and actions for the invitations they offer us in expanding our own capacity to hold love.