“She took one last look back at her old life and then closed the door and walked into the future that was waiting for her”, Kirsty Gallagher

Pluto has moved into Aquarius. What are your waiting for?

I saw this post tonight (Monday)on Instagram and it really spoke to me. Kirsty Gallagher is an astrologer and if you follow astrology you will be aware that the big cosmic news is that Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, moved into Aquarius on Sunday. He travels back into Capricorn for one last time in the autumn, and then we move into the Age of Aquarius. Pluto is slow moving and stays in a sign for 15 to 20 years. He is the bringer of transformation. If you don’t get the message about change he will beat you down until you do. Better to go with it than to fight it. Whether you like astrology or not there is no denying the level of change being experienced. The other week a friend posted on Facebook with the question “Is anyone not in metamorphosis?” I know from my coaching and therapy clients that big changes are happening for people, internally and externally.

So why did that headline have such impact on me? Because I sense the truth of it, irrespective of the astrology.

Something crystallised in the image of taking one last look back. It makes me think of an empty room, casting my eye around the space, checking whether I’ve missed anything that I need to take with me. The sense of walking away, knowing that when I close the door It. is. Done. No regrets. Stepping into something new. Different. Unknown. A little skip in the letting go. A little skip towards the future. Not being tempted to leave the door ajar just in case of a last minute siren call of something safe. I smile to myself at that, listening for the call back to something familiar, something that I’ve been moving away from for years yet never quite let go of. Reading Kirsty’s words I knew that the door had closed. I heard it. Quietly. Silently. Slowly. Only the soft click of the handle as the door shuts. No need to turn the key, there is no lock on the door. I can go back if I want to …..

I’ve been in the goo of metamorphosis for a long while, nursing hopes and dreams, coping with various life challenges along the way, many of which brought delays, doubts and fears. Oftentimes I wondered whether I’d got it wrong and whether my dream was a mirage, a fantasy and that I was in pursuit of the wrong thing, perhaps I was meant to stick with what I knew? Perhaps I was barking up the wrong tree? I’ve realised that my depression of the last few months has been about the fear of not having what I want and not being the person I want to be, the fear of going back. The fear of not closing the door on an old life, an old me.

But once you are in the goo there is no going back. When a chrysalis is opened up too soon it kills the dying caterpillar and emergent butterfly. We die while in the goo. The old life dies. The new self forms. Metamorphosis is about more than transition. It’s about more than change. Moving house is a change. Becoming a new self is metamorphosis, true transformation. The seeds of the metamorphosis are contained in the old self. All those longings, the daydreams, the wishful thinking, the spark of the Will for something new. Metamorphosis requires dissolution. Metamorphosis involves the death of what once was. Metamorphosis requires trust in the process and holding your nose through the stench of decay. A lot goes on in that big old compost heap. The compost breaks down to become soil, rich in nutrients that sustain new life.

Does the butterfly know it’s become a butterfly? Do we know what future awaits us after closing the door on an old life, an old self? I have a sense of where I’m heading whilst staying open to the experience being different to what I’ve imagined. I can adapt. Though change is not linear the future is waiting for me. I feel like I am going to meet my lover, my beloved. The door has closed and is now behind me and I am walking into the future that is waiting for me.