The body has just a handful of basic needs: water, food, sleep, and air.
The soul, in it’s multiplicity, has a variety of needs – so many that sometimes trying to meet every individual aspect of our inner-being, when they are ALL raising their hands at the same time, is quite the challenge.
But at the beginning of life, and in the foundations of our being, the soul really has only two basic needs: autonomy and belonging.
Autonomy relates to the seed of individuality that lives within each of us. The Greeks called this the telos of the soul and related it to an acorn that has its innate destiny and motivation to become an oak tree. We each have a distinct telos and the soul has an innate need to be and become itself. Autonomous people are in charge of their own destiny – they are the rulers of their own inner and outer life. It is our birthright to be in author(ity) of our own lives, to hear the call of the soul and follow its lead.
The need for autonomy and the expression of the unique soul is a highlighted experience for all of us right now due to the large number of activating energies sweeping through Aries. Aries rules the masculine principle of self and the initiating aspect of the soul that drives individuation. With so much activation, especially from the innovative, revolutionary, and unique-ifying Uranus – the inner rebel that drives the birth of self is waking us up to this need.
But our need for self often feels like it is in opposition to the other equal need of the soul – to belong. For many of us it feels like a choice we constantly have to make: Do I take care of myself or honor my responsibility in this relationship? Can I be myself or have this job? Can I speak my truth or be in relationship with my mother? Can I be my most eccentric unique, expressed self or will I be exiled, ostracized and alone if I do?
The need for belonging is highlighted by Saturn moving through the sign of Libra, which rules relationship to the other. Saturn asks us to take our relationships seriously, to be responsible and accountable to others. Saturn can feel quite heavy if we don’t align with his medicine – his ability to bring the highest order and organization to our relations.
So with Saturn in Libra and Uranus directly opposing in Aries we are all called to the task of marrying these seemingly opposed forces: to be accountable to others and to express our most distinct self at the same time.
Most of us, over the years, have gone the either/or direction, choosing one need only to abandon the other.
Example: many of us would rather be in relationship than be alone. When we are children our choices are limited because we are dependent on our connection to others – we have to belong to the tribe to survive. But this kind of belonging, without authentic expression, without the spaciousness to be who we are, is pseudo-belonging – it is more the face of compliance, oppression and the herd mentality. There are no leaders in this kind of society, there are not artists, and there are no differing beliefs. There is also something to be said about the sleepy comfort of conforming. It’s less risky to live your family’s plan for you than it is to listen deeply to the soul’s plan within you. Though most are so embedded in the tribe’s consciousness that they walk through the world in a state of cultural trance – they don’t even know their inner dream has been culturally co-opted.
On the other side of the spectrum, many of us turn our backs on needing anyone all together. We walk away from family and community in order “to be myself!” But individuality without connection to life creates a consciousness where every man is “an island unto himself.” This creates a feeling of isolation, loneliness,” bootstrap mentality” and unconscious corporations doing whatever is best for them without accountability.
Another way of looking at this paradox is through the lens of independence and dependence. In our western culture “dependence” is a dirty word and self-sufficiency is applauded. But whether some of us like to admit it or not we came into this world dependent on others – and we still are in it together. Even the most rugged among us, if they can admit it, longs for connection, reception, relation, and a sense of being a part of something greater.
Whether we have chosen more often to belong or to be me, at this paradoxical crossroads we all share one thing – shame and the myth of exile. In even the most loving circumstances with loving parents and a supportive tribe, there is still some aspect of who we are that our early environment could not see, identify or support. That’s what makes us each unique and distinct. Sadly, the very part of us that nobody could see, love or identify growing up, is the part of us that we came to believe wasn’t lovable and wasn’t wanted. And like the ugly duckling, cast out from his tribe for being different, we travel through the world asking everyone “are you my mother? Are you my tribe? Is this where I belong?”
The part of you who has always felt separate, unseen, misunderstood, or hidden from your family actually points the way to your unique self – to the artist within you. Culture needs the artist within you to expand our experience of belonging. There’s something our community needs and it’s that part of you that you think is ugly, unwanted, and unlovable.
True belonging, an experience of truly feeling a part of life and connected with others only happens when we risk bringing our unique inner artist, the shaman, the strange, awkward insecure one to the stage of life. The two feet of soul must move us forward together – we must take one step towards radical self-expression and one step towards vulnerably risking our expression with and in connection to others.
Now for some quotes from two of my favorite mystics:
Lady Gaga:
“I want women — and men — to feel empowered by a deeper and more psychotic part of themselves. The part they’re always trying desperately to hide. I want that to become something that they cherish.”
“I’m obsessively opposed to the typical.”
“Don’t you ever let a soul in the world tell you that you can’t be exactly who you are.”
“It doesn’t matter who you are, or where you come from, or how much money you’ve got in your pocket. You have your own destiny and your own life ahead of you.”
“I’m beautiful in my way, ’cause God makes no mistakes. I’m on the right track, baby. I was Born This Way.”
“Sometimes in life you don’t always feel like a winner, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a winner, you want to be like yourself. I want my fans to know it’s okay.”
Rainer Maria Rilke:
“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”