SKY RIVERS, GRIEF PARTIES + BAY LAUREL
We do what we must, become who we are, and we are forgiven.
Seeking counsel in the redwoods I take a deep breath. My bones feel the places beneath the earth where the roots of these elders hold each other like a circle of clasped hands. The air is still and thick and ancient. A breeze assumes the scent of bay laurel and plunges itself into my lungs. Grief and hope intermingle, the human equivalent of dew springing forth around my eyes.
Plants that help us breathe deeper open us to grief, sweeping through us to make space. This is part of healing, but not the whole of it.
The Venus Cazimi in Leo last weekend certainly helped clear out some over-crowded closets. For a moment, we may have touched worn and somehow still raw wounds. This was the combination of hurt and respite that can only come from pulling the injury out from where it was carefully tucked behind a box on the top corner shelf.
Bay Laurel is a solar plant, oft associated with the god Apollo. Apollo is many things, bears myriad names:
The Sun. The all-seer. The Oracle. Far-shooter. The center. The flame. And interestingly, the Sun is the healer.
While we might associate cures with many planets, the luminaries have the strongest lineage in art of healing. Apollo knew every plant, and what to do with it. Planets which are cazimi (like Venus was last weekend) are bathing in the healing fire of the Sun. This is a purification ritual, if you will.
The greek name for Bay Laurel, is Daphne, a stunning nymph and virgin huntress who escaped from the Sun Lord’s fervent grasp, cried out to her father the river, transfigured herself to earth.
As the story goes, Cupid shot two arrows...
The first, sharp and golden, poisoned with the potent allure of love. This arrow pierced Apollo with inescapable yearning for Daphne.
The second, for Daphne, dull and blunt, made of lead, meant to avert the pursued from her pursuer.
Apollo chases in anguish, pressing her not to fear him. He emits eminence. Desperately lists his honors, his power as oracle, his patronage of medicine. He attempts to bring clarity to his intention, but it is lost in the frenzy of his infatuation. His vision is blurred by passion. His actions blinded and confused by the power of his heart hunger.
His chase is mis-attuned, though his love is true.
Horrified, Daphne runs. Rejects. This is the part of the story that is fueled by fear.
Fear which is justified. Fear which is completely rational and reasonable. Fear which is as natural as the hair standing taught on the back of your neck.
Daphne, sprinting swift as the wind, emblazoned by Artemis’s favor.
Apollo, swifter still, his focus compelled by Cupid’s arrow, burning hot with lust.
When at last Daphne can run no longer, she arrives at her father’s river, cries out for help, asking that her beauty be destroyed. The prayer barely leaves her lips as she grows quickly still, limbs turning stiff, gnarled roots hooking into earth, leaves springing upward, trunk enveloping her triumphed heart.
In a last effort to protect herself, Daphne makes a sacrifice. She cannot change back. She is a huntress no more. She is quiet and unmoving. She is a magnificent Bay Laurel, still on the bank of the river.
Though her human beauty vanished, Apollo loves her still, gently pressing his lips to her wood, placing hand upon her trunk, feeling her pulse beneath the bark. He speaks with acceptance
Since you cannot be my bride, you will be my tree, sweet laurel. I will crown myself and those I honor with your branches. Our traps and quivers will be wreathed by your leaves.
As if in agreement, the laurel tree inclines, branches seeming to bend in offering to the Sun, as he receives his consolation.
Apollo is driven not by his own will, but by Cupid’s arrow. Even a god as skilled as he succumbs to the pulse of Eros.
Daphne too, is guided by Eros, a grim trick which has her running far as she can away from the light.
There is madness and there is love and there is life.
There is yearning and the sting of rejection and grief.
There is realization and healing.
There is the pulse of Eros which guides us.
There is nothing we can do but become our most true selves.
And in the tragedy of becoming, there is forgiveness.
I look up from the path. Redwoods reach hundreds of feet above me. Between them, a river of bright blue sky. The opening welcomes a current of wind, scent of bay rushing downstream.
Bay awakens. Bay smells like life to a hindered heart. Bay fills parched lungs with Eros, with what it means to love and to lose and to go on anyway. To me, Bay is a plant of forgiveness because it reminds me there is so much more to feel. So much life left to share. So much that cannot bloom under the thick blanket of insurmountable grief. So much that wants to grow, even after the haste of passion's fire.
Grief is not suppressed by Bay. It is awakened and then released.
The solar power is to real-ize. To become real.
Perhaps in Daphne’s transformation Cupid’s curse is lifted.
She becomes part of the wild she loves so much. That love which she would never abandon for a life of wife-ship. And in her becoming, he who loves her does not abandon her either. Rather, she is integrated, in her true form.
Solar work is critical to healthy relationships.
Solar work is self-acceptance.
Solar work is self-witnessing.
Solar work appears fixed but is eternally transformative.
Solar work is healing.
The culmination of a solar process is forgiveness.
Perhaps with her beauty gone, Daphne finally understands Apollo’s love is not laced with malice.
Or perhaps in her rooting, she makes the choice to rest.
Or maybe in stillness, she realizes desire and repulsion can co-exist without either being wrong. And yet, it is a tragedy to be loved and unable to return the occasion.
Recognizing the tragedy is part of grief.
Apollo’s love does not wane. Sol will continue shining, emitting, adoring, warming even when it is not loved back.
Forgiveness does not need another. Forgiveness needs ourself.
Summoning forgiveness is part of reconciliation, recovery, restoration.
In stillness, Daphne can see something she could not experience in swiftness.
As the Bay Laurel, Daphne arrives in her authenticity.
Here she finds the space for grief and the fertile soil of forgiveness.
To forgive is to stop the rage and the frenzy. To stop running away.
To forgive is to release ourselves from the past.
To forgive is to disavow fear.
To forgive is to change oneself wholly, so as to no longer anticipate distress.
To forgive is to release the responsibility of protecting oneself from further harm, freeing up energy that can create healing and new life.
To forgive is to cancel a debt. Nothing is owed. Nothing is waited upon.
To forgive is to move forth, into the future.
To forgive is to receive relief.
To forgive is to be remedied enough to embrace Eros.
To forgive, is to love again.
Forgiveness is a friend of grief and a follower to fear and rage.
Forgiveness takes time and arrives in the space made by its aforementioned brethren.
Forgiveness is the company that comes fashionably late to the party.
Forgiveness isn’t always the most welcome guest, but it works hard to be a good one.
It is said that eating Bay Laurel enables one to see the future, likely an association with Apollo’s affinity for prophecy.
The future is a dream that can only come in forgiveness.
Clarity of vision is a gift that forgiveness brings to grief’s party.
As Venus prepares to station direct on September 3rd, I hope you will embrace it.
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