Using triggers to find hidden treasures

The alchemy of Scorpio season

This Scorpio season is finishing with a big bang — with a new moon this Thursday, while five planets are in retrograde. It’s time to review our notes from last semester as we prepare for graduation. We are in big threshold energy. The keynote is alchemy.

This year, the autumnal journey into the underworld has been a colorful and intense one for me. (When is Scorpio not intense?)

I have been dancing with the nearness of death. Exploring what legacy and lineage mean to me — both human and non-human. Testing my immunity to a global fear epidemic. Mud wrestling with shadow relating dynamics and covert control mechanisms.

We can see the clever architecture of the limitations we’ve constructed. The cages we made to contain our creative power — prisons shaped by our own hands, using the bars of our own thoughts.

It is confronting to face the loss of everything that we’ve ever loved. To stare down the reaper and say, “Okay. Well, if you must, you must.”

There’s no use in grasping. No time left for clinging.

Ready or not, we are dying into the arms of total acceptance. And we are falling in love with Life again, beckoned by total trust.

How much more life is possible, when we stop trying to avoid death? Rather than playing god, let us be human. Let us remember: the preciousness of life relies on the fact that it’s limited. Instead of calling for life support because we can’t let go yet, maybe we learn to read the turning of the leaves and prepare the compost heap instead.

When we notice a form is near the end of its lifecycle, the most humane response is to allow it to die. Why prolong the march towards death? By doing so, we’re only blocking the entrance of new life.

On my drive home yesterday, I was reflecting on the human ecosystem. I wondered about what it means to have a healthy environment that supports the flourishing of organic humans. It’s up to us to create that. We can all provide nutrients or leak toxic garbage into our surroundings. And it’s not random. We have a choice about which one it is.

I have been toying with this particular lens, which views everything as a resource. Everything in existence. Even the things we don’t like. Even the things that cause us the most trouble. Especially those things. I’ve been saying this for years: Our triggers point to treasures in us, but only if we’re willing to dig when they come up.

Impulsively we often turn away from triggers. We don’t like the ugly stuff that they reveal to us. It’s usually uncomfortable to see. But what a missed opportunity for alchemy this is! There’s gold at the end of the tunnel that can enliven our dreams.

What makes each human unique is our personal lived experience. Machine beings don’t have that offering. But unfortunately, that also means that if you’re human, you’re likely carrying some sort of trauma story. Somehow it’s a part of our divine design: this glitch where a particularly intense story gets stuck on repeat. An experience that leaves such a strong impression, that when the recall button gets pressed, it reliably generates suffering. A mechanism as painful as it is predictable.

Why would humans come with this annoying feature built-in? If everything is a resource, then what is the value or the benefit of this mechanism?

I don’t know exactly, but I have a few theories about this. I believe that the deeper the trauma, the deeper the well of energy that it gives us access to. But to be able to tap into this resource effectively, it requires skill-building. It’s not enough to build capacity to hold energy. If we want to participate in a higher purpose beyond mere animal survival, then we must learn to convert energy into a useful form and direct it consciously.

Without the space of awareness, when a trauma response is triggered, it inverts our capacity. Like a storm that casts a ship captain out to sea. Consciousness overboard! A vessel for creation can flip into a vessel for destruction, instantaneously. Unattended by presence, our vessels are easily hijacked by any wayward energy. And most of the entities out looking for a vacant ship to board are of a destructive variety.

On the other hand, when held skillfully, triggers hold a lot of potential value. The emotional response they spark can be turned into initiation energy. The energetic charge they bring can power-up our commitments. The spotlight they shine can reveal hidden distortions in relating dynamics. And the content they stir up can be brewed to enrich trust and intimacy.

Triggers point to many treasures. But it’s not easy to achieve this alchemy. Our triggers need to be held in a field of mutual trust and respect. With the remembrance that when one person is triggered, the other one mirrors this. Our reactions are ours to own; we need to take self-responsibility for them. But the shared field where triggers get escalated is always co-created.

To find the treasures that triggers point to, we have to see how we are dumping garbage. Only when we pause in presence, can we compost our shit into nutrients. But for that to happen, vulnerability has to be held higher than righteousness. Curiosity has to be elevated above defensiveness. That is how we create a nutrient dense ecosystem for humans to grow in.

This Scorpio season, what is composting for me is my core wound around not being seen. The little one that hungers for recognition. The little one that still waits for someone to say “good job” to her. How ironic it is for me to miss this, when I’m the one that puts all the restrictions around the ways I have to show up. Not like this. Only like that. Not on this platform. Post only on this one. But you know, not too much.

As I walk forward, I hope to remember more often than I forget: I am the one choosing. Being seen in all aspects, in all dimensions, is directly correlated to my willingness to fully show up.

Blessings for the coming Scorpio new moon. May it be a nutrient-rich, dark soup of alchemy for every one of us.

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