010—It’s All an Ouroboros

The sun shining through the water cycle over Miami Beach, July 2023.

It’s still hot here in Miami. Hot like I’ve never seen here before, which is saying something. I’ve had to shift my morning run and walk from 8am to the hour before sunset so that the sun doesn’t burn through my sunscreen and the first couple layers of skin. It’s hot and humid and muggy and reliably rainy. Like I mentioned in my last post, you can experience the complete water cycle each day, every day. An ouroboros of water.

This regularity has got me thinking of cycles, of endings and beginnings. There’s flexibility in the water cycle—even greater variability now with greater climate change—but still it flows. It does not and will not ever stop. The water doesn’t stick to surfaces holding on tight saying it “just doesn’t wanna evaporate!” And it doesn’t condense into clouds for eternity, never to release precipitation. And it doesn’t rain forever. There are limits to its growth and time spent in each stage of evaporation, condensation and precipitation. Similarly, we as people go through our own cycles, with limits to growth in each phase that necessitate moving on to the next phase, which invariably means ending one thing to make room for the next thing. And it’s not that the new thing may possibly happen, it’s that it will happen, either from your own jump or step into the unknown or from the Universe’s push. There’s flexibility and variability in how we move into the next phase—big and bold or more gradually and gently—but still we flow. It flows.

Really, everything, you, me, us, we are each an ouroboros and take part in a larger ouroboros of Life. As above, so below. It’s all cycles within cycles—like a multitude of churning wheels and gears that all somehow work in sync. And it’s all refracted through many prisms and magnitudes: the smaller story playing out in the bigger story and vice versa, in all shapes and colors and sizes.

Sometimes we know the change we need to make to move into the next phase of our own personal cycle, and we’re afraid. It’s hard to take that leap of faith. And yet, despite the fear that can envelop you like a dementor’s cloak, you break through it because however much you protest, you know there’s no other choice but to progress to the next phase. Onwards. To evaporate or condensate or precipitate.

On the topic of water and cycles, here is a poem I wrote based on a prompt from a Trust and Travel online poetry workshop in October 2021 with the enormously talented Amara Amaryah.

Waterfall

By Jessica M. Castillo

October 2021

She walked through the heavy vines as

they whispered secrets of the forest to her.

Hopping onto this flat stone and that one,

nearly slipping into the glacial stream and,

upon sensing its frigidity on her tiniest of extremities,

she wondered

just how far this life-giving liquid had traveled,

from its solid form at the pole

to this secret garden,

all draping jungle and fertile escape,

for those lucky enough to discover it.

She waded into the icy, shallow pool at the base of the cascading

other-form-of married hydrogen and oxygen.

Perhaps this is Eden, she thought,

the start of this world,

a microcosm of life.

This week I’ve been:

Some snaps from my past week. Most of the photos from this past week are indoors because it's so hot that it forces me inside! I've been pivoting, though, and running at dusk and sunset as well as walking a shaded path to the park.

I celebrated my aunt Claudia's birthday with family and I got to hang with these cuties, Ava (my goddaughter, my cousin Stephany's daughter) and Easton :)

Reading: I’m nearly done reading The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. I love it so much I don’t want it to end! It’s so good. 11/10 recommend.

Writing: Morning pages and inching back into some old poems I wrote. Will share more soon! And new ones!

Photographing/Photo Editing: I’ve been editing photos from my time in California, starting with those at Jackrabbit Studios, and I finished some portraits of my friend Caroline, founder of Rewolf Agency. I love them so much! These were so fun to create and we work so well together. Can’t wait for more shoots and creative flows to come <3

Caroline at Jackrabbit Studios, June 2023.

Watching: Rick Rubin’s interview on 60 minutes on YouTube. And another YouTube video of an interview with a former gang member. Also some more Ted Lasso. And my addiction to tarot horoscope videos on YouTube has creeped back in :(

Listening to: My California Vibes Spotify playlist. Spotify’s Dreamcatcher playlist. Spotify’s Dancehall Mix playlist, which I listen to while running. As well as Ali Farka Touré, Oomou Sangaré and John Lee Hooker.

I’ll be traveling with my mom in Colombia visiting family so Light Balance will be back in a couple weeks! Expect lots of photos :)

Xo,

Jessica♾️