Thank you Lorie, for your kindness and wisdom. I had some time today to read over the ritual piece and am inspired to create one that speaks to and releases these ancestral drives to escape. I will keep you posted on my process! I also love the description of the Chinese character for ritual, an altar with flowers offered to the gods, as I sit next to my mother’s altar with our offerings and feel her calling me to honor and heal from our family’s wounds. In my family we did/do not talk about ancestral spirits, trauma, epigenetics, so diving into this work is a first for me. It feels important and deeply moving.

I’ve also been meditating on this tension between Neptune in Sag + Sun in Virgo, that although the two forces seem to be at odds there is, as you say, a third magnificent way waiting to be born. Just as escape does not need to be physical, freedom and adventure need not require jumping on a plane or even leaving the house. These are states of mind. I’ve found in the past couple of weeks that there is much freedom in making conscious choices that release me from old patterns or ways of thinking, and that pursuing relationships with essential oils, tarot, my dreams, inner sensing, this incredible community — these are all adventures. Not to say that I won’t still desire to visit faraway lands or shake things up once in awhile, but doing so from a place of wholeness vs. deficit and knowing that the freedom I seek lies within seems like the key to synthesizing this new possibility.

I’m excited to see what I become. Thank you for creating the space for this transformation. <3