I’m not going to celebrate turning 29 for the next 15 years in denial.
I didn’t make it into the 27’s Club.
Hopefully I made it through my Saturn Return without having to redo this cycle again for the next 28 years of my life. I think I made it… there were such huge shifts in old patterns and cycles, though in the moment sometimes it didn’t feel that way.
I felt like I gave up everything to assist a true shift at times.

 

I remember my 13th birthday in middle school. Everyone was so excited that year to finally be a teenager, and I couldn’t have been more terrified. This began my affinity with more punk and goth clothing at the time. It only seemed appropriate to wear black to mourn the loss of childhood (and of course make a show of rebellion to the establishment trying to endow responsibility upon me that I might not want to consent to). I was simply just not going to take it lying down.

I suppose I have resisted surrendering to life’s natural processes for most of my life. I do not feel old by any stretch of the imagination, yet there are many days when the feeling of being 60 or 80 years old is entirely palpable to my imagination. But now that I think about it, I’m not so resistant to the idea of dying and letting go of the old- it’s moreso the way we humans project meaning onto these different Ages.

If what we celebrate about these seasons is beautiful, then it’s beautiful. I am waiting for the fuller cultural and globally-scaled integration of recognizing the full wisdom of spirit that each being has throughout their entire lives, not just once they have accrued certain societal and traditional accolades.

We love the idea that the revolution will be led by the youth, yet we suppress them and medicate them into conformity so as not to disrupt our stability in these broken norms.

We say that children bring us back to purity, that being a parent is to be a student of your kids… yet we cling to this idea that we need to shape THEM into productive upright relatively moral creatures, all the while trying to hide the parts of our own lives and relationships that exemplify that we don’t really know how to congruently execute contentment within our own psyche. And then we unconsciously pass on those fragmented ways of thinking, being, living to the innocent impressionable children, rather than showing them the boldness of living out Love consciousness instead of Fear… we teach them as we were taught to survive at the expense of creation and exploration.

 

We all do the best we can with where we’re at. This is not meant to shame, but meant to wake us up to where we are acting in blind illusion and reconnect us with something more powerful and freeing. Most of us learn what we want by contrast… even though what we love could be easily exemplified from our first years of life on earth (given we had the room to express ourselves), we go through experiences that seem like the complete opposite of what we want only to remind ourselves and truly convince ourselves that we really do want that thing that we’ve always wanted from the beginning! [Or we play out those false desires to understand their illusion or impermanence so as to redirect our consciousness… but this dovetails into a slightly different subject. I digress.]

 

I’m so fucking excited for this year. I’m not distracted by  whatever 30 might or might not mean. It’s like the saying of “Whatever you do or don’t think, you’re right,” or however that saying actually goes. Last night I had a slight catharsis of intention for where I want to steer my energy this year. This has largely to do with a few main points:

1. Growing in my financial responsibility.
2. Taking my health and vitality to an even greater level, because I recognize that the progress I made this past year is just progress, not the end point of arrival.
3. Growing in my Self-expression, through communication with others and throughout artistic means.

I have made strides in these areas this past year, and I am proud of it, but in no way do I feel like I’m totally where I want to be. So this is like a sort of Vow Renewal, that way that people who have been married for 25 years have a whole ceremony to recommit themselves to each other. They recognize that while it’s been a great journey so far, they want to remember why they have chosen to walk a certain path, that they are maybe different people with different needs than when they set out, and acknowledge the new aspects that will characterize the next phase of their journey so as to be consciously aware. It’s fucking beautiful when people recommit themselves to their marriage that way. It’s like reaffirmation of “This wasn’t just worth it, it was good enough for me to sign up for another ride! I’m down for the challenge and the joy.” I am recommitting to the journey I’m already on. I’m recommitting to myself and what I love.

This is how I feel about 30. I feel like I’m just beginning in a lot of ways. There is way more of a sense of newness an aliveness than there is of slowing down. I want to violently shake anyone who tells me that they are “getting old” as they turn the corner of 30. I’m like, “You can get up and get moving, or you can go home while the rest of us have fun with this game. We’d love to have you along for the party, but please stop complaining if you’re going to be here.”

Life is what you make it, bitches. I will probably gather a bunch of sobriety-loving people to go dance at some ridiculous bars with me and only have one drink the whole night, because I will be so high off the vibes from the music, the crowd of people, my own endorphins…. there’s a lot of energy to tap into if you can just release your inner tension. I don’t want people buying me drinks left and right because those substances meant to uninhibit us sometimes can detach and disconnect us from the good shit that is all around us and in us constantly. I have used alcohol to help assist that release of tension in the past, but more and more I’m finding that I can access that freedom from inhibition without alcohol, and this way is free from the drawbacks of alcohol.

 

So that’s the forecast for my 30th year as Jennie RaeLi on this planet. I’m ready for it. I’m already in it. May the Intention Adventure continue on!

Live Adventurously!!!