It’s been 40 days of the Antisocial Social Club.
That feels like something to celebrate, or perhaps honor, or maybe just observe and be with.
The symbolism of 40 days registers in my being, even as my mind floats to different interpretations, various cultural, religious, and metaphysical connotations. I feel 40 days in my body, informing my mind.
40 days to make a habit.
40 days wandering in the desert.
40 days: a time period of testing, trial, purification and renewal.
This is a modern understanding, linked to Judeo-Christian mythos, both from Jesus wandering in the desert for 40 days, tempted by the devil, and from the Old Testament stories of the Israelites exile.
Yet this symbol has an even older connection, a Goddess connection, to the archetype that rules my Sun, my ego, my radiance and sense of Self.
Venus, the older sister of planet Earth, the teacher of life through embodiment and relationship.
Venus, the planet of love, harmony, art, creativity, beauty and justice, dances with Earth in an orbit that makes the image of a five pointed star, a five petaled rose, over an eight year span. She’s able to ‘draw’ that image in relation to Earth because once every 18 months, she elegantly moves ‘backwards,’ shifting from the morning star to evening star and back again. She traverses five retrograde periods in her entire orbit, and each one is - guess how long?
You guessed it.
40 days, and 40 nights.
(Rose of Venus, orbit in relation to Earth)
This is a time when Venus slows down her pursuit of beauty, luxury, and pleasure out in the world, to attune to them within ourselves. The Goddess parallel is that this is when Inanna, Lady of Heaven and Earth, journeys to and through the Underworld, to meet and merge again with her twin sister, Lady of Shadow and Torment, Erishkigal. It is a time that Inanna ‘turns her ear to the great below,’ and willingly descends to meet her sorrow, suffering, rage, grief and shadow.
40 is a sacred number, often linked with a sacrifice that ultimately leads toward greater freedom, integration, and wholeness.
40 days is the length of many different religious fasts which aim to bring practitioners closer to God.
In many religious traditions, there is a belief that the soul lingers on Earth for 40 days after death, engaging in a journey of purification, judgment, or preparation for its ultimate destination, which may be reincarnation, heaven, or another form of afterlife. This period of 40 days transcends mere time; it encompasses the profound journey of the soul as it transitions beyond the physical realm.
There is fascinating research about ancient solar calendars of pre-Christian Celts, which marked the passage of time in a measurement of 40 days and 40 nights. Egyptian astronomers used a nine-part year, measured by a span of 40 days which tracked the rising of the star Sirius.
In mothering, 40 days and nights is strikingly near-universal in various cultures around the globe, as the time that mothers and babies must rest together after birth, to allow their bodies and souls to land fully in this world.
Dying. Mourning. Birthing. Fasting. Seeking. Purifying.
40 days is the shape of a symbol of transformation.
I read this, and I FELT it:
The number 40 is of a revelation, a revealing of something or someone. It is to reveal what was before hidden, like opening a curtain or a door and seeing what is behind it.
Through the ages and eons, 40 days and 40 nights is a door, a portal, a threshold which separates one way of knowing from another.
It seems no coincidence that due to a strange and unexpected turn of events, I found myself today poised to download Instagram, hovering over the button - not out of my own craving or desire, but a desperate attempt to reach a friend who has gone missing. (I would later identify their location and condition, but at this moment, I did not know).
It might seem a small thing, but it felt charged with meaning, and as I hesitated, I heard a quiet voice just say “40 days.” I put the phone down, and listened more deeply. As I walked back into the house, instead of searching frantically for them online, I prayed and asked the divine to keep them safe, to surround them with angels. I called on Raphael, Michael, Uriel and Gabriel (this is unusual for me). Then I went to the bathroom (in my own house), and lying on the floor was a coin - a gold coin about the size of a quarter, with an image of an angel on both sides. I'm not sure where it came from, I've seen it in the kids toys before, but don't know it's origin.
My prayer had been heard. Within two hours of that, I found the hospital where this friend was admitted, and felt a greater sense of peace.
But what does it all mean?
Perhaps what 40 days means is not something to be captured in words, but - as all symbols are - something to be felt, contemplated, experienced.
In Kundalini yoga, it is said that 40 days of sadhana (spiritual practice with a particular breath, meditation, or mantra) will break any negative habits that block you from the expansion possible through the unique magic and power of that kriya or mantra.
I am honoring this 40 days of writing as sadhana, and holding a prayer that it has helped to purify my creative channel, to mourn my social media avatar self, to rest after the birth of a new way of being. It has let me wander in the desert of my own making, questioning my intentions and temptations. It has invited me to descend again into the cave of myself, stripping my masks and familiar ornamentation, each step leading me down towards my shadow-self, mirror-self, my dark twin.
I declare, and receive, that this devotion has broken any negative habits that may have blocked me from the expansion possible through the unique magic and alchemy of writing just to write.
On this threshold day, as I stand and gaze at the road ahead, I see the remaining eight waypoints, thresholds, portals - each 40 days apart. I see the rose of Venus in my mind, sense Her pattern in my body, and feel her medicine in my heart.
I am dancing with the symbol, and it is dancing with me, weaving with the rhythms of the moon, my own blood, the nightly dusk, daily sunrise, every cycle in the percussion of creation.
40 days and nights.
Once again, in a subtle way, I am reborn.
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