BEAUTY OF AGE: In many cultures, youth is worshipped and aged ones are hidden, considered to be no longer worthy of respect or valuable. Yet in other cultures, the older a person becomes, the greater not only their wisdom, but their beauty. For Kitsune, the passing of years becomes the gateway to deeper and stronger energies and powers. Like this ancient wisteria vine, its adventures recorded in its woody sinews, twining and curling about, playful and engaging, strong and deeply rooted, and flowering as it grows older, so you, friend, now shall now to do yourself. For as you grow older, seeker, you will continue to flower. You will further develop. You will thrive and explore, adventure and inspire, and this faery comes to you to ask you to become older in beautiful ways. To know that your aging is beautiful, and that spirits all about you respect and honor you, for with every year you have lived, you have grown, and you will continue to grow.
Many people, as they grow older, begin to feel they must wither – but others dance into the elder years, finding partnership and beginning new projects, allowing their true selves and eccentricities to become more and more clear, until we are buoyed up by their active, daring lives. You too will thrive, grow older, and dance. You too can become more beautiful as you age, and defy the stereotypes that would have us wither and decline and become invisible to the world. Speak to people. Venture out. Rebel against those who urge you to behave in ways that are not true to yourself. Make your life a divine shower of sparkling inspiration wherever you go, for as long as you are blessed to live. No – not this fate for you, beautiful one. Grow old – and stay fully alive until the very last breath you take this time around on this planet.
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LEAVE BEHIND WHAT IS NO LONGER YOU: Sometimes when we feel we are being what is called by humans “true to ourselves”, we are in fact not being true to ourselves at all. At times, we develop habits of self, and who we are has become an old story we tell ourselves and others, over and over again, until it seems natural and inevitable. This, after all, is who we are, we believe. But the truth is now here for you, and some of who you have told yourself you are is about to get a shake-up, and you will find yourself walking through the gateways into a new version of who you are, and leaving behind who you once thought you were. This will be a raw time, a time when we feel vulnerable and exquisitely sensitive, yet it is good work that we do when we no longer follow a pattern, but seek instead to become who we are meant to be. But in order for this to take place, something must be left behind before you walk through this gateway.
Choose what feels less true than it ever has before, and choose what still feels like a pattern you have attachments to. For once you walk through the gateway adorned with all the attachments and entwinings that ivy can bring, we will cease to make our former self and others and responsibilities our major commitment. Instead, your own undoing and re-becoming will surface and demand its place in this next stage of your life. This is a gate of freedom you walk under. First, though, put down the burden of attachment to who you believe you are – or, more truthfully, who you believe you ought to be. Rebirth yourself, dear friend, and allow the gateway of the realm of the Kitsune to work its magic upon your endless re-imagining of who you are.
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MEMORIES OF THE FORGOTTEN SELF: When did you forget all of who you are, dear one? When you did begin to believe what others say is true of you and turn away from the quiet certainty of the internal voice, the voice of your own soul, calling you back to remember all of who you were? Did it become too difficult? Did it seem that others perhaps knew more than you, more than the ancient self who has traveled with you for millennia? Can you now see that it is impossible for another to know you better than the voice of your own immortal soul knows you? At whatever time it was that the voice of your soul was smothered, it never was quiet, and it found its way through the labyrinth of self-doubt and fear until it rose up within you.
It is with you now, the forgotten self, urging you to remember, showing you scenes of who you once were in this lifetime, the visions you had as a child, the times you stood firm in your own trust and belief in yourself. It will first whisper to you of the truths of the soul, sharing the secrets of who you are, reviving memories and dreams of other times and within this lifetime. Then that voice will grow stronger, showing you moment after moment, until you, bright soul, finally remember. And at that moment, which is coming for you, your own voice and the voice of your soul will entwine as one, and you will no longer be who others feel you should be. You will incarnate again, in this lifetime, as the once-forgotten self, now remembered and alive and present.