Fight, Flight, Fleas

I once saw this video of a scientific experiment demonstrating how a flea’s behavior could be forever conditioned by this brief experience in a lidded jar. The video spoke to how the flea’s initial reactions were to break free by any means necessary, so they would bounce sporadically into the closed lid that trapped them in the jar, trying in vain to escape confinement.
At some point, the fleas accepted the limitations of the jar as their new normal and adjusted their jumping height to avoid hitting the lid of the jar.
Once the lid was removed, they didn’t attempt to escape because they no longer registered anything outside of what they perceived as the jar’s limitations.

As time passed in the unlidded jar and the fleas’ numbers multiplied, even the fleas’ offspring didn’t attempt to escape the confines of the open jar. As pupils of their parents, the flea offspring were taught that there’s a limit to how high you can jump in the jar before hitting a barrier, oblivious to the fact that the lid was no longer a limitation that was present.

The fleas forgot what it meant to be free.

This comparative realization helps me to understand how the objective behind the process of “doing the work,” “Shadow Integration,” “Healing the inner child,” is all within the goal of aligning ourselves with purpose, recalibrating our jumps to escape the unlidded jar, reconditioning ourselves to believe in an experience beyond the lid and outside of the jar, remembering what was once forgotten.

So tonight, as this new moon in Cancer peaks, I thank my ancestors, both known and unknown, for their guidance, knowledge, support, and protection.

I gratefully observe and acknowledge it all as I expand my awareness beyond the lidless jar and prepare to jump into the vast unknown.

12th House 2022 Poem:

Light cannot exist without darkness

The culmination of life events illuminates the truth of this

Pushing, pulling, ebbing, and flowing

Forget what you think you know but rather rely on your inner knowing

With emotions raw and ready to consume

Swimming, swirling, twisting, and turning in the vastness of this New Moon

Merging head and heart in tune with the Universe's synchronicities

I'm journeying deeper into my Cancerian 12th house of mysteries