I walked the labyrinth in High Park this morning in honour of the New Moon and my birthday. It was part of the ritual that I wanted to create for the day to create a new beginning for this year. It turned into so much more.
The journey started when I had a synchronistic encounter. I ran into my homeopath - a woman who was instrumental in the treatment of me and my beloved cat Artemis who succumbed to cancer last March. This synchronicity created the atmosphere of something awesome that was about to happen. The healing element was present.
I reached the Labyrinth and left my purse with all of my outer persona outside of the circle - phone, wallet, identity etc. I entered the circle and said aloud "I am open to hearing whatever spirit has to say to me." Throughout the walk I felt my heart open and felt joy love and gratitude exist in a place deep inside of me. I could hear someone say "this is all you". The circle of the labyrinth contained me. It provided safety and protection. My senses were heightened in this open hearted place - the wind rustling through the tall grass, the bird song. It was as if my being has tuned itself into nature and danced with it.
Three quarters of the way into the centre, I saw a homeless man walk towards the labyrinth and sit on the benches that surround the circle. His clothes dirty. He was in his 30s. Thin from the lack of food. Dark curly hair and a beard. He sat with his back was to me.
At this point, the experience transformed into a dream or a vision. I continued to walk. Mindful of my persona lying on the ground inside the outer circle and potentially in danger, and outside the labyrinth itself, a personification of whatever was homeless in me smoking a cigarette. I didn't see his face but his back, the part of himself that he couldn't see.
The unconscious will often be personified as masculine in the dreams of a woman. His physical appearance could have been a personification of my animus.
I continued to walk and reaching the centre. I faced both persona and homeless. After a couple of minutes, the homeless man put his cigarette out, looked at me briefly, got up and walked into woods. I was still in the centre of the labyrinth. At this point, I started my way out feeling touched by spirit and clear on the need to integrate the homeless aspects of myself. The parts of myself that I have disowned and relegated to living in the woods.
There was something of this experience that reminded me of the Saturn Uranus Opposition - the configuration so influencing this New Moon. It was as if the two symbols reflected either side of the opposition. Saturn symbolized by the purse lying on the ground - the status quo, the blackberry, the pieces of identity, the structure around who I am in the world. The Homeless man -the outcast, the rebel, the energy that lives outside of the system and all that Saturn relegates to the unconscious -the woods in High Park.
The danger with all oppositions is to identify with one pole and project the other. The lesson to learn might be is to recognize - as I did from the centre of the Labyrinth - that both aspects are from the same whole and to explore the possibility of revolution with the existing structure.
Christina Becker is a Jungian Analyst and Psychological Astrologer. Her practice purpose is empower individuals, couples, teams and organizations on their path of transformation. Her website is www.cjbecker.com .
I love how you work with your experience and parallelled it with the Saturn-Uranus opposition. Great insight! It's so true that Uranus is also the part of us that is exiled from the mainstream of society. And Saturn of course is the roles we take on in our lives, which uses all those things in your purse. Thanks for sharing your experience. :-)
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