Today, the mind and spirit touch and the terrain becomes clearer. If you feel like you’ve been in an elaborate and almost incomprehensible maze, that is not wrong. Only it’s a maze that shifts as we move through it, where what was once a dead-end now opens up to a new pathway, and a reliable corridor now goes nowhere.

Alone, we may feel condemned to wander pointlessly in a puzzle designed not to be solved. But with the clarity each of us brings to our little portion, if we could put all of those individual maps together, we’d have a glimpse of the whole and the path through.

This is the ongoing work, to map and illuminate our portion of the maze, to tell others what we’ve learned and listen to what they’ve learned. Even if you cannot trust another to save you, you might learn something useful if you listen.

It is unfortunate that mindfulness went through its rising popularity, co-optation, and then rejection almost a decade ago. When mindfulness was taken out of its religious context and introduced to the public as a self-help tool, it was easy for corporate leadership to then adopt it as another opportunity for people to better manage themselves and become better workers. Then, naturally, the pushback—articles suggesting it was sinister that we were being encouraged to stop thinking in a time when we were being used.

Of course, mindfulness is not gone, but it comes back to me today as an important tool and as something deeply misunderstood. The benefits of a meditation practice are subtle and hard to name because in part the practice is to thwart our desire for definitions, control, and names—freeing the mind to be more flexible in experiencing, understanding, and responding to the world. But even as I name this benefit, it must be with the caveat that we do not meditate so we can be more flexible. We meditate simply to meditate, and that freedom and flexibility may be a benefit that arises as a result of the practice.

All of that prelude comes to me because now seems like a good time to practice meditation. When there is anger and fear, when there is a fixation on enemies and oppression, our minds become entangled with and subsumed to this world of oppression and enemies. I don’t mean it’s your fault you are oppressed. I mean that we can be so fixated on the first coming toward our face that we don’t notice there’s all this space around the fist that you could use. It is a martial practice to attend to this. Focusing on the specifics of how you are being attacked actually works for your attacker’s favor because you are paying more attention to their tactics than your own opportunities to respond. Of course, it isn’t good to ignore the attack either.

Hence the practice of meditating, of softening. Just sit, and breathe, and notice what is happening within you but let it be there without you needing to fix or manage it. See if you can soften your gaze and expand your senses.

Social norms are the ways we make it possible to relate to each other and the ways we inhibit each other from actions that would cause too much harm or disruption to the group. Some words are unsayable, thoughts are unthinkable, actions branded as crimes that carry the consequences of expulsion or incarceration, all to maintain the cohesion of the whole at the expense of the freedom of the individual.

Yet these restrictions are never fully comfortable, never fully resolved. The individual with our unique needs, our unique ideas and thoughts, our desires will push against those norms seeking to make new space. Sometimes, circumstances or conspiring forces push radical changes to collective norms to which the group must adapt, or else it fractures into conflict.

The season of Aquarius is a phase of the radical restructuring, the shifts of governing norms that could empower some individuals and suppress others. As Mercury moves through it, its quickness of mind and cleverness of will wants to move faster than the collective can tolerate, creating confusion. Our understandings could empower us to gleeful trashing of obstacles, or overwhelm us with feelings of helplessness, but neither can possibly be complete. Every impulse invokes its countering impulse. To change radically invokes the countering pressure to maintain the status quo. To behave recklessly and quickly invokes the slow but powerful countering of great containing force. To attempt to constrain and suppress invokes the upwelling of resistance.

If you can, let your mind take in these dualities as they move together. The symbol of Aquarius is like two lightning bolts moving in parallel, and so too are these forces of revolution and oppression, radical change and resistance. On a cosmic level, these forces could easily dance together. In our human bodies and human lives, these forces radically destabilize us in their warring. Drink water and try to get rest.

We might be feeling both the sharp urgency to fight and the despair of feeling as though our blows are limp and flailing. Take a moment and notice all the people who care with you, care for you. You don’t have to like all of them, agree with them, or even consider them allies. But notice the help that is offered to you, and all those who are doing what they can. You, too, can do what you can without doing everything.

When feeling out of control, it’s good to remember that fighting is an option. You can plant your feet, shout no, and resist what is coming your way. But that is also a very exhausting, depleting response. It can be too reactive, too simplistic, and we can say no to too many things just in the urge to maintain some sense of agency in the situation.

I find that honoring my anger and taking action is one way of feeling alive in this world, even if I don’t get the outcome I want. The deeper lesson is that standing up for one’s self is always an act of self-respect that cannot be stripped away, though it certainly risks consequences.

Today is a day to honor the angry and hurt parts within us that need to be strong and need to stand up. Give them energy to take meaningful action—to speak to the person who could do something about the issue, and not just to a nebulous horde. And take time to have fun, to rest, to play, to live your life. Make space for your full self.

One lesson I took away from behavioral psychology is the limits of punishment for getting the outcomes you want. It has a function—when delivered in a timely and direct way, punishment decreases the behaviors you don’t want. But it doesn’t teach the behaviors you do want. All the punished one knows is that thing it just did incurred consequences.

To teach, to lead, you need a clear vision of what you want and the capacity to communicate it and encourage what you want by rewarding and praising when you see steps moving in the direction of what you want. You can’t just get sullen, withdrawn, and vindictive when you don’t get what you want. That diminishes connection and, over time, encourages covert resistance and disobedience.

Whether you like it or not, a chapter is closing and old ways of doing things are ending. There is suffering and there are opportunities in this moment. Life is not fully beyond your control but you must accept the things you cannot influence so you have more energy to focus toward what you can.

Today is a time to grieve if that feels right, or celebrate if that feels right. Write out what you will and won’t miss about life before this year. Let it become fertilizing ash for the life to come

I am taking a needed vacation from regular posting, and appreciating this moment in which exalted Venus in Pisces is in a friendly connection with flailing Mars in Cancer. Both love an ocean, where Venus is abundant and expansive in her great love for all beings, while Mars is the crab on the beach that will mess you up if you get in his way. He wants safety and sees mostly threat, while she sees what is beautiful and elevated and might overlook the real dangers and faults.

This feels like a moment rich with the opportunity for delusion, and imaginary danger may bring forth real consequences. I want to secure what I love, strengthen my defenses while keeping my heart open. Strong boundaries allow for grace and generosity.