During my sojourn along the gulf coast last week I became aware of a painful fact: I was repeating a pattern of self sabotage.
This particular pattern looks like this: ignoring my need for quiet contemplation, the inner wild, and communion with the mysteries in favor of staying current with emails, social media, and my bottom line.
Believe me, I see the irony.
I feel the rub.
But alas, even someone who teaches mysticism can still be swept up in the dominant culture, the mainstream as it were.
So there I was, on this sojourn with the fresh medicine of The Mermaid (wildness and rebellion, to name a few) coursing through my mystical veins, and yearning for less structure, less schedule, less technology, less distraction.
So it was easy to wanna rebel, you know? Like, screw this, I gotta be me! I gotta unplug! I gotta get away from “the man” and patriarchy and modern culture!
But rebellion is not The Mermaid’s most potent offering.
Integration is.
Picture her: half fin, half woman. But all Mermaid. She’s not two unrelated things stuck together. She’s one thing, a mermaid.
So when you have contradictory yearnings, The Mermaid gently grabs the pendulum, stopping it’s relentless extreme swinging, always attempting to self correct. She looks you in the eye and says, “you can have both, you know”, gesturing to her tail and her torso.
Remember the Little Mermaid? When she ditched her tail to fit in and be accepted by the prince, she lost her voice.
So instead of chucking in my iphone for a scroll of papyrus and exchanging my car for a cart and pony, The Mermaid archetype is helping me integrate my desires for quiet contemplation and outreach, wild ecstatic wonderment and business mastery.
Because truly, both extremes call to me. I would be untrue to my deepest nature if I ignored either of these desires. I am a quiet contemplative and entrepreneur. I am mystic and marketer. I want to be both. I want the prince and my tail (ah hem).
So, what about you? Do you feel integrated?
Or are parts of your personality on permanent gag order, shoved into the closet? Are some of your aptitudes being sacrificed in favor of others?
The Mermaid archetype wants to remind you that you can have both. Or rather, it’s vital to your survival that you have both.
If there’s a part of you calling out for attention and nourishment, trying to get a word in edgewise against your dominant nature, it’s time to listen to it. Answer that call. Integrate it, and feel whole.
That’s Mermaid medicine.
love & cardigans,
kv
