Letter From the Editor: June

Hi, it me. Plz pardon the radio silence but I just been out here like going through massive transformational growth, transmuting some trash lifelong patterns, processing grief, finally learning how to accept love, all that painful but necessary self-actualization shit. I might not be fully back but I wanted to check in with y’all and say a lil hey what’s up hello as we head into summer on the tail end of months of cosmic mindfuckery and upheaval. Let’s all just take a pause and a breath and thank ourselves for having made it this far, wherever we happen to be.

I wrote this in the shadow of last week’s New Moon, reflecting on darkness, trauma, and unhealthy patterns. For the past few months I keep pulling this card from the Kuan Yin Oracle deck called “The Threshold”, which essentially speaks of transitioning from fear-based to love-based embodiment:

“At the Threshold you stand. You are embarking on a phase of deepest soul liberation, into freedom of love that triumphs over fear. It is a sacred passing through a karmic veil into a new life of empowerment, peace, spiritual service to humanity and joy in your own Soul. ”

Fuck. Like, true, and like, tite but like…ok fuck. So here I am I guess but, how to cross this threshold intact? Undoing a lifetime of self-hate and breaking its subsequent patterns is daunting, to say the least. The card says that there can be deep testing on the threshold, like final boss-level tests before busting into this whole new way of being. I can say this from way too much experience: it’s pretty fucking impossible to accept and give love when you don’t really love yourself. How can anyone be comfortable with love and abundance and happiness when at a base level, secretly or otherwise, we feel like we don’t really deserve nice things?

If those we encounter are mirrors to our own souls, then by loving those not ready to accept it I reflect upon myself and where I’ve been. I look into the other’s eyes and see myself within, scared and ready to bolt, already halfway out the door - you won’t like me if you find out who I really am, in all of my darkness and insecurity and self-loathing. But as I’ve seen recently, it’s really untrue. Our darkness is an integral part of who we are, the scar tissue of our trauma; it’s what makes us beautiful and complex and worthy. I believe that when we start to let others see us for who we really are - in all of our “ugliness” - is where the real healing happens. And it’s through putting ourselves through the terrifying experience of repeated vulnerability, when we start to cross over. So on the precipice I’ve been grieving, for the parts of myself that I’m shedding and unconsciously want to hold onto - because it’s safer down here in a way, it’s easy and familiar to cling to shitty fear-based patterns and self-sabotaging ways of being.

I also think about the threshold as an indicator of where we currently are as a society, as a global community. I look around and see that we’ve had enough, that we are awakening at lightning speed and in droves. Shit’s about to implode, and we’re on the brink of a brand new era of (I believe) more peace and liberation. We need only take one glance around at the chaos currently reaching a fever pitch to clearly see that it’s the wildest before shit overturns. May we hold each other in love and compassion through the changes to come, as we cross the threshold together. Maybe, hopefully, I’ll see you on the other side.

<3 Steph