Category Archives: Astrology

Chiron’s Cave

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Cave1
In Chiron’s cave- well, my version of it at least. Preparing for part 3 of the “Chiron in Aries: Reclaiming the Self in a Time of Awakening” journey happening this evening with a group of fellow Chironians.
With the group well underway and my own Chiron return building momentum, lots of (sometimes uncomfortable) insights are surfacing. The Chiron wound can bring about a sense of victimhood, especially as we often feel that the wounds we received, like Chiron in the myth, were of no fault of our own. Overcoming victimhood and learning to reclaim personal power and autonomy, especially for the Chiron in Aries group is a big part of the healing.
Also exploring the relationship between Chiron and Black Moon Lilith- one of the topics of tonight’s session. Both Chiron and BML take us into the realm of our energy body to see how we operate on an energetic level and learn how to clear our energy; this is a deep diving into the subconscious and unconscious to see what forces are in operation, often without our awareness. This process is aided in the Chiron return with the spiritual light of Uranus. But it can be a rocky ride…
If you missed the group but would like a Chiron focused astrology session, I am available for online consultations.

Aries New Moon: The Gods of Love.

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‘Psyche Entering Cupid’s Garden’ by John William Waterhouse

April’s new moon on the 12th heralds powerful new beginnings inaugurated by the messengers of spring and bathed in the amniotic sap of rebirth. Aries is the first sign of the zodiac;  the first moon in Aries marks not only a new lunar cycle but a whole new annual cycle. This Aries new moon is particularly strong as a host of other elements accompany and reinforce the luminaries.

Sun & Moon are at Aries 22°- Mercury at Aries 14°- Venus at Aries 26°- Chiron at Aries 9°- asteroid Amor at Aries 11°.

That’s a lot of cardinal fire, a burst of cosmic energy penetrating even the densest matter. It’s the kind of signature that can set the world on fire; it is sheer warrior (of love) energy, and the question presented to us at the threshold is-

What will we pull through the birthing canal. What precious things shall we lovingly tend and hold dear until they take root creating a strong foundation for the coming year and beyond?

The Sabian Symbol for the new moon is-

PHASE 23 (ARIES 23°): A PREGNANT WOMAN IN LIGHT SUMMER DRESS.                        

KEYNOTE: Fecundity.

Masculine aggressiveness and the woman’s desire for fulfilment (Phases 21 and 22) are integrated and realized in the expected child. This three-fold sequence can be seen operating at several levels, and the third term, the child, can take various emotional and cultural forms. The basic meaning remains the same. Summer is the period of fruition. Man – at the receptive “woman” level – reaps the fruits of his dynamic activity.

This is the third stage of the fifth five-fold sequence of cyclic phases. It combines the two preceding ones and suggests INNER FULFILLMENT.

Also in Aries is asteroid Amor at Aries 11°- asteroid Cupid (which is the same as Amor) has just ingressed over in to Taurus 1°. The Greek counterpart of Amor and Cupid is Eros, at Capricorn 7 ° forming a trine with Uranus, god of liberation and change at Taurus 9°.

The Gods of Love are asking us to reconsider our ideas and beliefs about love. What blocks us from expressing and receiving love, and ultimately are we ready for a higher love. Are we ready to enter the garden of Cupid?

Asteroid Amor is conjunct Chiron by 2 degrees facilitating greater awareness of our personal and collective wounds of love, highlighting the hurt places that cause us to contract and cut ourselves off from universal love.

As the Sufi mystic, Rumi says,

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Even though the barriers to love at this time appear impenetrable, it is another great soul, Mahatma Gandhi who reminds us of an “indefinable mysterious Power that pervades everything”. Of this power Gandhi  says,

And is this Power benevolent or malevolent? I see it as purely benevolent. For I can see, that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists. Hence, I gather that God is Life, Truth, Light. He is Love. He is the Supreme Good.”

Though it may seem that we are in the midst of darkness and death, many of us sense a deep stirring in our being calling us to rise beyond the oppression of the soul in captivity and reclaim liberation from the purveyors of doom and life stealing schemes.  In the midst of death life persists and nowhere is this urge to life more tenaciously reflected than an Aries new moon where the impulse to life pushes through even the most barren ground and hardened hearts.

We stand on the polarity point between Eros, god of life and Thanatos, god of death, and like many before us on the quest for sovereignty we must discern what is ready to die and what is ready to be born. Father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud believed Eros and Thanatos are two states locked in a perpetual battle within the human psyche. It is Eros’ consort Psyche who finally sets us free through the depth of her love, commitment, and devotion in the face of adversity. Psyche chooses love at every turn and in pursuit of her beloved enters the Garden of Cupid.  

The polarity between Eros and Thanatos is not a duality of good versus evil, it is more like a continuum of reflection, tension, balance, and rebalance. Without Thanatos, Eros would have nothing to stive toward, nothing to push against, becoming complacent, apathetic, and dull. Without Eros, Thanatos would have nothing to destroy as everything would already be in a state of decay and undoing and before long there would be nothing left -a perpetual wasteland… some may argue that we are currently living in the wasteland. The King is sick, the land is sick, and the people are sick; the vice like grip of Thanatos has held reign for too long culminating in a petrified state of unbalance and near stasis. Fear and aggression are expressions of Thanatos, both break down and reduce rather than open and release. It is love that liberates the soul.

We need Eros’ reviving kiss this new moon as never before; the strong Aries energies are a mighty band of warriors ready to defend life. The pregnant woman in a light summers dress, the fecundity of spring, the bursting array of life in the plant and animal kingdoms are at their strongest. That same principle is in us… can you feel the sap rising, the juices flowing? The west wind is blowing away the dead wood, the Zephyr is fructifying all living things- the messengers of spring have spoken.

In mythology, Psyche is a beautiful mortal woman who falls in love with Eros, and he with her even though their love seems impossible, prevented by a spiritual law that states mortals and gods cannot love equally. Each night Psyche is visited by Eros who makes intense love to her bringing her to the height of ecstatic bliss; their union is consummated in the dark so that Psyche is not aware of her lover’s godly status and in her ignorance their partnership is for a few hours equal. Though she can feel Eros, Psyche never sets eyes on him, however once she becomes pregnant her curiosity gets the better of her and one night she hold a candle over her love to gaze upon him… an act that is strictly forbidden. It is not a horrendous monster before her as she has been told but a breathtakingly beautiful man who upon awakening is accidentally burned from the hot wax of her candle. He tells Psyche, “the one thing I asked you never to do you have done, and because of this I must now leave you”. And off he flies.

Heartbroken Psyche is set a series of seemingly impossible tasks by the goddess of love Aphrodite including making a descent to Hades to request a drop of beauty balm from Proserpina. Although the tasks set to Psyche seem unobtainable, through help from the gods, tenacity, and an unshakable love for Eros, Psyche completes her mission. As she goes at last to set her final prize before the goddess Aphrodite, she is tempted to steal a drop of beauty balm and opens the little box given to her by the goddess of the underworld. Instead of beauty it is “infernal and Stygian sleep,” that is released causing Psyche to fall into a deep state of unconsciousness… the god of death, Thanatos lurks close by in a hazy fog waiting to claim her soul.

Catching wind of his love in danger, Eros now healed and deeply moved by Psyche’s devotion comes to her aid and revives her with his kiss. The lovers win the blessing of the gods and Psyche is admitted into Olympus- a rare honour, and in fact maybe the only mortal to be made divine. Psyche became the Greek goddess of the soul; she and Eros gave birth to a daughter, named Voluptas or Hedone, meaning bliss or pleasure.

‘Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss’ by Antonio Canova, in the Louvre.

With the warrior planet Mars at her side this new moon Psyche’s commitment and devotion is stronger than ever. Mars (Gemini 23°) conjunct Psyche (Gemini 25°) is the Warrior of Love reborn with the aid of a powerhouse of gods at the astrological point of rebirth and renewal. And in Gemini the relationship between mind, our thought processes, and psyche or soul is highlighted. What messeges are we sending into the world as this will influence how the world reacts and interacts with us. As James Hillman says, it is not so much that we have a psyche, it is more that we are in psyche. Everything is in psyche and the Aries new moon is the kiss of Eros that we need to revive us.  

 

Chariklo’s Love: Healing the Pain of “I Am”

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Painting- I take a Bow by Yolanda Holman

A big part of Chiron’s medicine and particularly when Chiron is in Aries is the healing of the Self. Aries boldly proclaims, “I AM!” while Chiron points to our deepest wounds- Chiron in Aries therefore indicates a wound to the Self on a core level. In this case the Chirotic journey is about healing through claiming, or reclaiming of the Self.

Chiron wounds are of a particular quality, they seem to permeate the body and seep into our mind becoming etched in our soul as distorted identity signatures. In working with the Centaurs there is often a thread of ancestral pain weaving through the generations and like puppets on a string it can feel like forces beyond our grasp are controlling our lives. This is a deep programming that needs to be excavated and released before we are finally free from the past. The Chiron return is an initiation that facilitates this process if we are open to it.

Collectively too there is trauma-based conditioning that affects whole generations of people… what will be the long-term effect of children born in the current Chiron in Aries group? The last Chiron in Aries group, particularly in the US, were born into a society in the grip of an increasingly brutal and shadowy war, racial violence and protests, and covert government social experiments. These psychic legacies infiltrate the collective consciousness shaping our societies and form the matrices that influence, either positively or negatively, our shared reality.

The pain of reclaiming the Self is the pain of “I Am”.

Recently a Chiron in Aries woman referred to herself as “Marmite”, and I knew exactly what she meant… not everybody loves her, and yet, she, like many of us are finding a way through the pain of “I AM” and learning to stand proudly in who we are regardless of whether we are liked, accepted, or approved of.  No matter how strong the individual, wounds of rejection run deep in our human need to belong; to leave the comfort and acceptance of the tribe and set out on the hero’s or heroine’s journey is no small undertaking. To see it through is a great achievement, it is the liberation symbolised in the Grail mythology… the Grail being the sacred vessel of the Self.

When it comes to reclaiming the Self we are essentially alone in our quest as we strive to release the heavy baggage of shame, guilt, not being good enough, being wrong, bad, faulty, less than, unworthy, mad, as well as many other denizens of self-loathing and sabotage.

The keys of Chiron can birth us into being our own loving parents who may have been sadly absent; the unconditional lover who never showed up because we were busy sending a message to the world that we are undeserving and unlovable. In the highest expression of Chiron’s initiation we become our own beloved loving ourselves unconditionally, recognising and cherishing our sacred divine essence.

From this state of grace no one can dislodge us from our seat of power.

This magical transformation is seen in the myth of Chiron specifically through the unconditional love and devotion offered by his wife Chariklo. If we accept Chariklo as an archetype existing on the inner planes and not an outside influence (although she can be), she is a symbol of the unconditional love that we finally uncover in ourselves.

Originally a naiad or water nymph, Chariklo shapeshifted into a Centaur so that she could become one with Chiron. For Chiron, this gesture of devotion is utterly healing and transmutes the initial wound of rejection by his mother.

In his book on Chiron, Zane Stein says,

Here was a woman who not only accepted his centaurean form, totally, completely and without judgment, but actually saw him as beautiful and willingly took his form herself so that she could be close to him. How could he not love her back with all of his being? And his unconditional love was the beginning of his healing, from that first deep wound of his mother’s rejection.

When go through the sometimes-excruciating pain of “I Am” and learn to love ourselves unconditionally, we activate our inner Chariklo. Of course it is wonderful if another person sees and loves us so deeply, but the true marriage is within. It is only by discovering union with ourselves on the deepest level that we can accept an outer union of the same depth.

The fact that Chiron is able to transmute the poison of rejection through Chariklo’s love speaks of our journey to wholeness when we finally realise that all the shame and self-loathing we have been carrying was a projection from the outside, and sadly often from our families of origin and communities. Chariklo’s love is the panacea needed to discover that the greatest love of all is found in the exquisite healing relationship with ourselves.

The Chiron return at around age 50 is the threshold over which we can begin the journey of self-reclamation. The Chariklo return at age 63 is in its highest expression an opportunity to radiate our love from a sphere of wholeness that is neither weakened or diminished by sharing our unique gift with others.

Are you part of the Chiron in Aries group born between April 1968 -April 1977?

If so, perhaps you would like to join me on a seven-week odyssey with a band of fellow travellers exploring the myth of Chiron and discovering how he operates in your life… and asking the question: what does it mean to experience the Chiron return during these times?

Chiron in Aries: Reclaiming the Self in a Time of Awakening begins on the Aries new moon on April 12, 2021 through to May 24th.

You can send me a message if you’d like to find out more, or if you would like a Chiron/Chariklo focused astrology reading.

The Warrior, The King, & The Lover.

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king-arthur-C.E. Butler

 

On the full moon on 28th March at 19.48 GMT, the Sun will be at 8 degrees of Aries conjunct Chiron and Venus also at 8 degrees of Aries.

The Sabian Symbols are a set of 360 phrases and interpretations written by Marc Edmund Jones in 1953 that correspond with each of the 360 degrees of the wheel of the zodiac. Words and images convey the inner meaning of each degree making the Sabian symbols a creative resource when working with astrology.  

The symbol for 9 Aries  (round up to the next degree) is-

PHASE 9 (ARIES 9°): A CRYSTAL GAZER.

KEYNOTE: The development of an inner realization of organic wholeness.

When the Sun is in Mars ruled Aries, the Warrior archetype is active. In archetypal psychology the Sun is the Self around which the other planets orbit (other parts of the psyche). The duty of the Warrior is to protect the Self; by nature the Sun/King is generative, fertilizing, and benevolent. The wisdom of the good King resides in the heart and is fully connected to the mind and mental faculties.

In many fairy tales and myths such as the Grail legends, the story begins with a sick, wounded, or lame King- a symbol that the Self as organising principle is not functioning properly indicating that other aspects of the psyche are in control. The Wasteland is a symptom of the wounded King, the land is devastated, laid bare, nothing grows… if the King is wounded all are wounded.

The image of King Arthur and his 12 Knights of the Round Table is a beautiful mandala symbol of the the psyche’s wholeness where Knights/Warriors are operating in full concordance with a central unifying and fertilizing principle- the King. Each of the Knights in his way must endure trials, tests, and challenges to be brought to the level of excellence required to serve the Crown. In reality this is the long tender, often painful process of refining the personality and overcoming the demons of ego.

When the ego runs amuck and assumes superiority over the Self there is sickness and imbalance. A sign of this is seen in a lack of generative energy, vitality, and creativity. Poverty, inertia, and over rigidified control are just some of the signs of a wounded King. When this happens, dysregulated aspects need to be slayed (with compassion) to allow the true harmony of the Self to flourish. The King himself must also to be periodically sacrificed to make way for a new King- we see this in the Celtic ritual of the Holly King and the Oak King, or in the myth of the Corn King- in the natural world this reflects the cycles of life, death, and renewal.

The shadow King is the tyrant or weak King; Warriors working on his behalf are ego aspects that have taken over the true Self or essence. Inflation is another downfall of the shadow King, for the good King works for the benefit of all and not only for himself.

If a culture is not thriving and the people are sick, this is a sign that the central organising principle-the King is also sick.

The King archetype exists in women as well as men, in both it is a generative energy with the capacity to protect what one knows to be true; fertilizing the new and ensuring harmony among the people, which can be read as coherence between body-mind-spirit. The journey to Kinghood for men and women, which is another way of describing maturity or individuation is a tough call and usually does not happen without sacrifice.

Chiron on the same degree of the Sun offers the possibility of healing fragmentation restoring the Self… who are those renegade parts of ourselves operating from the shadow or wounded King and what needs to happen in order for them to be brought back to the round table? 

The answer may simply be to ask what ails them, or whom they serve.

Presiding over the coronation this full moon is the Goddess Venus, magnetising to her all that is needed to set the house in order and create a heart centred space. Like the ever-benevolent Queen in true harmony with the good will of the King, Venus bestows forgiveness, pleasure, joy and offers inspired ways of bringing together that which has split apart, with kindness and forgiveness.

In this scenario the King, Queen, and Warrior are all on board with the life-giving principle of Eros.

Questions to consider this full moon:  

How aware are we of our inner organising principle, is all of us on board with our goals and dreams and are they born of our Kingly Self, or are renegade Warriors running the show and protecting the ego?

Do we have our Kingdom in order- how organised are we. Are we able to put conditions in place to successfully achieve our goals?

Is our speech and conduct in alignment with the vision of our higher self. Are we impeccable with our word?

What parts of ourselves do we need to bring home across the bridge of Chiron and into the arms of Venus?

Chiron: Bridging the Gap of Cognitive Dissonance

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Image by Kelly McKernan.

Mars is the ruler of war and warriorship, when Chiron who is involved with healing fragmentation and claiming the true self is in Mars ruled Aries, things are likely to get heated in the quest to integrate disparate realities.

Cognitive dissonance is a mental state caused when cognition- beliefs, thinking, perception, etc. is not reflected in our behaviour and external realities. Collective dissonance is when the external reality is at odds with the feelings and experiences of sections of society. Forced compliance behaviour is one of the main causes of cognitive dissonance, such as being forced to comply with ethics or beliefs that go against our values. In societies where it becomes increasing difficult to challenge authority or social norms the tendency is to turn the conflict inward, or out to our communities leading to the fracturing of the individual, society, or both. Under these circumstances protest is likely

On 10th March 2021, the Home Office issued an updated Policy Paper on protests- Police, Crime, Sentencing and Court Bill 2021: Protest Powers Fact Sheet, in which an official is recorded as saying,

“Ever since the first large-scale Extinction Rebellion protest in April last year I have been talking publicly and with the government about the potential for change to powers and to legislation that would enable the police to deal better with protests in general given that the act that we work to – the Public Order Act – is now very old, [dating to] 1986”.

Clause 1 of the policy sates,“The measures in the Bill will allow the police to take a more proactive approach in managing highly disruptive protests causing serious disruption to the public.”

In researching the period of history when Chiron was last travelling through Aries- between 1968- 1977 it has become clear that the first decan of Aries (1-10 degrees) is a political and social hotspot for the Centaur. Social unrest, protest, war, government manipulation, collective shadow, mass distraction, assassination, and a radical shift in consciousness all underpin Chiron’s placement in early Aries… not just in the last Chiron in Aries transit during the extremely turbulent late sixties and early 70’s but also in the previous Chiron in Aries cycle 1918- 1926.

An example of collective dissonance was in the summer of 1969 (Chiron at 6 Aries) when the horror felt by many Americans in relation to the Vietnam war was offset by pride and patriotism inspired by the Apollo moon landing. For many there was a deep distrust of the government who were exposed as lying to the American people, and yet it was a momentous occasion that placed the United States as winner of the space race. As the country was still recovering from the shock of the assassination of Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, for a jaded youth the possibility of dissociation through psychedelics and getting high at Woodstock was an seductive invitation to drop out.

At the outbreak of the covid-19 epidemic on 31st December 2019 when the World Health Organisation (WHO) was informed about a number of cases of what was thought to be pneumonia was reported in Wuhan Chiron was at 1 Aries. On 12 January 2020, it was announced that a novel coronavirus had been identified as the cause of the outbreak and by the time of the launch the vaccination for COVID-19, Chiron had moved into 4 degrees Aries.

Despite many people including a large number of health professionals who did not believe that masks offer any protection against the virus, the wearing of masks was nevertheless mandatory. This along with other enforcements during the pandemic caused individual and collective dissonance.

Chiron’s medicine is the panacea for healing cognitive dissonance, it helps us to claim our authentic selves bringing us into wholeness though integration of the shadow and light, conscious and subconscious. Synthesis requires vigilance and a willingness to confront the truth no matter how painful.  It is not always easy for humans in our modern material culture to face the darker aspects of life… and yet while we do not, they run us a mock and the expression of the shadow is writ large.

Between the orbit of Saturn and Uranus Chiron is the bridge between the limitations of our personal and cultural worlds and the transpersonal or collective realm influenced by powers beyond our control. Uranus, the great awakener, and liberator offers release from the vice like grip of Saturnian oppression. Crossing the bridge between these two states requires untangling from worldly illusions created by ourselves or others which impede our true expression, or as Jung calls it individuation. Reclaiming the truth of who we are individually and collectively exposes the falsity and illusion that we have either presented or accepted as reality.

Events such as the Harvey Weinstein case (Chiron at 1 Aries) sent ripples of anger through the collective because it touched our deepest personal wounds. The merging of the collective and personal shadow opens a channel for catharsis when for a brief moment attention is given to issues that have been long festering in the collective psyche. But there is a danger here of the energy being co-opted by forces and powers that use the emotional charge to fuel other agendas and propaganda. The subtle illusion of the issue is in the appearance of things being “dealt with” while in reality only the surface is being scratched. That’s why the same themes surface in an almost constant loop, though each time they do we are presented with an opportunity to penetrate things more deeply and see more clearly. But while we remain unconscious of our wounds, we are vulnerable to manipulation at the drop of a news headline or traumatic image.

At the heart of these complexities is a prevailing dissonance- we arrest Harvey Weinstein and countless woman open up to tell their story of sexual abuse and harassment in the #MeToo campaign. We continue to watch Hollywood movies that depict sexual violence offering no recourse to a deeper engagement with the issues presented… in short, we normalise it. That’s just on screen… since the arrest of Weinstein many women involved with Hollywood have come forward to expose the institutionalised misogyny at the heart of the industry. On the silver screen perhaps more than anywhere we live out the fractures of duality… good guys/ bad guys, and sometimes the ones who are meant to be good are the bad guys and the picture’s not so clear. But Hollywood is not an adequate receptacle for our shadow, it’s a hall of smoke and mirrors… as indeed is the whole of mass media.

The most recent event to send shock waves through the collective is the murder of Sarah Everard at the hands of a Metropolitan police officer. People who believe that the police force are operational at least in part to protect society- an image that is fast unravelling- are naturally horrified by this. Adding fuel to the fire of society’s unhealed wounds around safety and abuse of power is the police handling of female protestors who gathered yesterday in a vigil for Sarah Everard. On Mothering Sunday as men and women honour mothers and the Mothering principle, a sense of vulnerability, anger and shock coloured the day.

The reaction to Sarah Everard’s death is complex, there is bold talk of “putting a stop to this threat to women once and for all” but so far there is no proposal of how this might come about. One measure to ensure the safety of women against violence might involve more social control, and age-old technique of problem, solution that sometimes has other less tangible motivations in the mix. Failing that it would take a shift of consciousness and not just a media buffered campaign with a hash tag and a slogan.

While it was no doubt cathartic for women to share their history of sexual abuse and harassment in #MeTo, and while Hollywood as an industry of corruption was exposed, I wonder how deep the healing went. Alongside the campaign a proportion of men voiced their concerns at feeling attacked as the shadow masculinity fell under scrutiny. I noticed the same reaction rising in the wake of Sarah Everard’s death too. There is a disturbance in the field of our most intimate lives as the ancient wound of the masculine and feminine is repeatedly re-opened.

And yet, on the same day of Sarah’s murder, the University of Manchester issued a statement advising against the use of gender specific terms at all. Terms such as man/woman, mother/father, his/hers, etc are encouraged to become obsolete. On the one hand we are polarised and fractured precisely and obviously on account of gender while on the other hand we are being asked to move away from gender distinctions all together. Will rape and sexual harassment diminish in a gender-neutral society? Are women less likely to be abused if they renounce their womanhood? Here is another obvious case of cognitive dissonance.

It is our job to be vigilant and alert in how we respond to the heady cocktail of information and disinformation that is constantly filtered through the multiplex of society. If we are personally triggered by worldly events it is a clear indication of where our individual wounds lie, and there’s a good chance our personal wounds overlap with the collective- this is Chiron’s territory. In healing our own wounds we are in a stronger position to be part of society in positive and empowered ways. The problem with cognitive dissonance is that when it becomes too much, we simply switch off and become incapable of critical thought. Obviously from here we are easily led and all too easily hand our decision-making power to outside agencies.

The influence of these collective authorities is powerful and when through manipulation or coercion the collective unconscious is recruited in support of the cause, dissent is treated with contempt and sometimes violence.

Chiron reconnects us with our instincts giving us the opportunity to tune in with our true selves and discern what is real for us. Chiron is a bridge across which we learn to trust ourselves and stand confidently in who we are.