cancer season as prayer

tales of practicing slowness & the post-graduate insider

hellooooooo beloveds :~)

welcome to the first newsletter of my digital garden of musings <3 thank you for joining me in my latest mercurial girl project of the year! I hope you will find just as much pleasure in reading as I do in writing. I always had the idea of running a blog since I was little in the pre-social media years, I’m glad to have found a platform that feels comfy for me in this vast world of options from having a personal website to WordPress to Patreon (coming soon? 👀). So grab a warm tea, or your fun drink of choice, sit back, and indulge - if you wish to match the vibe, today I write while listening to Raevyn Lenae’s HYPNOS album & drinking a lavender honey latte I’ve learned to make! let me know if you want the simple recipe.

🎶 Now playing: Where I’m From // Raevyn Lenae ft. Mereba

If you know me, I write in different journal systems, my main journal being for daily-ish use that sees everything from songwriting to poem drafts to gratitude lists to astrology transit meditations. Yesterday, July 11th I wrote an entry approaching the final pages of this sweet tangerine I’ve been writing in since September of 2020, and it sure has seen a lot of change. That autumn witnessed me stepping into my truth, my first song fully produced, studying remotely as a college junior, taking care of my grandmother, not in my best state. This summer sees me in love, graduated, old fears conquered, new fears developed, celebrating the year anniversary of the Jungle Flame music video release, and knowing myself more and much much happier. I get emotional over little things like finishing journals, but after sporadically writing in this one forever, I can’t help but be grateful. I’ve made a little ritual of reading through my old journal entries every now and then. Oftentimes, when gaining our new lessons we forget old pearls of wisdom and truths. I find a lot of answers and reassurance for new questions in past problems. When we live in a fast-paced society that always wants us to run towards a finish line and never look back, patience and reflection really becomes a virtue. Which brings me to my main musing of June/this past week:

Practicing Slowness & Knowing Yourself

In the best way, cancer season always invokes a “slow down” checkpoint in the summers of my life. These days I’m learning patience and stillness with post-grad life. I’ve been having to detach myself from institutional and external value systems such as social media and learn what brings me feelings of success and completion on my own. It makes me feel like the final episode of Sailor Moon where Usagi defeats sailor chaos and is winged, naked, and feels alone in an aura of beautiful clouds and white lights, holding herself. Especially now and the summer I graduated high school in 2018 - I don’t know what awaits me, but I know it’ll be beautiful.

I’m entering an era in my life of truly listening to myself and my needs in alignment with the ebb & flow of life. Every death in the family has been a different lesson. My grandmother’s passing cleared all the unstable foundations we’ve built as a family over the years. I remember dreaming of the living room and kitchen walls cracking in half and crumbling apart last year, which is crazy to remember in reflecting on the space my grandmother has left behind. But every death brings rebirth. We are at peace knowing she is at peace, no longer in confrontation or pain. I am at peace knowing myself more now, and knowing she knows me more, still loving me unconditionally and hearing me better now than ever in life - especially in her final years. The greatest lesson in love is learning to listen and cherish someone while they are with you and learning to release them with all the same love when your time together is over.

Circling back to the idea of rebirth, I feel more connected to my inner child since moving back home after college, prioritizing my relationship with my mom, and leaving behind the fast-paced life of academia. In all honesty, the most destabilizing part of post-grad life for me is the lack of structured guidance. The lack of guidelines, deadlines, reward systems, not being able to easily find community, and revising my life plan, goals, and priorities in a hyper-capitalist society demands a need to go inward.

but the thing is –guidance is everywhere. It’s in your breath, in the veins of leaves, in the good thoughts that come up while you’re washing dishes thinking of everything that could go right instead of wrong.

I’ve been learning to listen to myself more and pick up on all the little pleasure impulses and optimisms I feel and making them a placemat at the dinner table in my mind. I’ve been dopamine detoxing with less unintentional social media use, less screen time, and learning to hear myself and my body again by being gentle to myself and returning to my hands: learning to cross-stitch, sew, wire-wrapping, doodling in my journal entries again, crafting, cooking, learning to drive, journaling, and as always, lots of restorative reading. ✨🌺

There’s a lot weighing on us now, from the overturn of Roe v Wade, to the threat on the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, to the daily threat of living in an ongoing pandemic that weakens our hope in the world, but in the words of Audre Lorde, we must always remember caring for ourselves is not self-indulgence, but self-preservation and an act of political warfare. Learning to maintain relationships outside of the parasocial realm of social media, taking care and checking in on each other in real time, and finding what makes us truly happy and satisfied are more necessary than ever. May we find prayer and invocation to gratitude in our food, in our water, in our relationships, and in dreams, always.

may the rest of this cancer season find you in a restorative state, more refreshed and relaxed. many blessings to all of you & many happy Capricorn full moon blessings 🌕🌱💫

love,

neptunemuse