Comes a time… comes a time, we stand at the Crossroads.
Perhaps a little one each day, a larger one once or twice a year? And then there are those few really big ones in our personal life cycles.

Crossroads. They’re junctures that call us forth with such a small sign.
+
What a sturdy little symbol to carry such big meaning! Forget addition’s plus sign—this humble + cross can encompass any opposing functions: add (learn) or subtract (forget), multiply (gather together) or divide (sever). It’s one of our most ancient, ubiquitous symbols, where opposing dynamics diverge and polarities collide. Like the crossroads.

What could it have meant to our ancestors who carved or painted this simple, universal rune 35,000 or more years ago, all around the world? Perhaps it spoke to the four directions… the four seasons… the four phases of the Moon. Or maybe it reflected oppositions like Body/Soul, Birth/Death, Light/Dark. But in our time, it stands for a profound challenge—the Crossroads. X marks the spot—you are Here. Now where? Is Nowhere a choice?

So let’s go exploring, taking our questions with us. There are collective crossroads, like the obvious crises that have humanity as a whole cornered at this time: climate change, migration, epidemics, relentless wars, famine, environmental degradation, species extinction, and the consolidation of top-down power. It’s Decision Time for our species’ survival.

And there are personal crossroads. Our individual journeys play out on the larger stage, but we each bring our own historical trajectories into focus. So I ask, when did you first take up your own personal Cross? Maybe around age seven, or perhaps twelve? At some point in our youth, we are suddenly struck by a particular, irreconcilable burden of life. This is a deep rite of passage, but it can only be recognized in hindsight—like a crossroad in the rearview mirror.

Childhood consciousness simply lacks the perspective to name that dark realization. It’s essentially an emotional low blow—hidden away in fear, guilt, anger, etc. Nevertheless, our youthful innocence is every bit as valuable as our hard-earned experiences—the many stories of our lives. Because in that innocence, before we felt the weight of the Cross, there was a core truth we carried and carry still. Always. It’s the truth that reflects the pure spirit of our life’s trajectory. And that spirit helps guide us through every difficult choice, every crossroad we encounter.

It’s actually the collective cross that falls on our shoulders at a certain time in our childhood. No one tells us about it, no one shares this shadowy secret. That cross holds all the limitations, judgments, expectations, beliefs, and ancestral legacies we are vulnerable to, personally. We spend most of our lives gaining the experience required to recognize our hidden cross. How many times, since childhood, have you stood at your crossroad, making another of those weighted, freighted decisions? North, East, South, or West? They are the hard right angles, no direction home… just this or that. That or this. Even the most creative and intuitive among us will spend years banging their heads against the same four walls.

But hey now, something has changed, collectively and personally, since the pandemic. Have you caught an unexpected, fresh breeze riffling against your cheek? The whiff of something enchanted in the air? We won’t call it “hope,” that forlorn, feathered thing. Let’s invoke some heftier, catalyst-like symbols. (And I do mean symbol—not a cause, source, or even influence!) Like the 12,000-year return of planetoid Sedna. Or Pluto entering Aquarius after 250 years. Then there’s Neptune and Saturn, each gearing down for a whole new tour of the zodiac, both entering Aries in the spring of 2025—an alignment that hasn’t occurred for at least 2,000 years. These are all symbols of deep, catalytic transformation. A catalyst does not cause change, but it does set up the conditions for change!

These days, there are so many bold, blended choices being made—we’ve got new perspectives and broader angles of perception. This, despite the desperate grasping to lock things down and bind us to the old ways. Can you picture our 21st-century diaspora of colonized beliefs fading out behind us in the thin winds of the Milky Way?

Try this!
Place an X in the center of your cross and now you’ve got an eight-winged Crossroad. Eight phases of the Moon, eight seasons of the year. These extra four directions are the midpoints—the true power points that propel the cross itself to turn, to wheel, to evolve. And this is just for starters, to get the ball rolling. Because, what do you call a four-pointed wheel? Hmmm, a flat tire?

Now let’s give this image real dimension. Stop and take a good look around you—a spherical 360° view like the Vitruvian woman (da Vinci’s Man).

Stand tall, widen your stance and stretch out your arms, palms up. Breathe into your four cardinal directions: the radiant crown of your head, the balanced soles of your feet, the palm of your giving hand, and the palm of your receiving hand. Then breathe into the Center point—your Heart. Repeat eight times. From there, your Heart center, you may begin imagining the eight perspectives that empower a fuller view of life’s possibilities. This is a catalyst practice, one that may result in a very different Crossroad experience.

Here is where we may become the breathing Prayer Wheel, helping us move through whatever Crossroad we’re graced to enter. Personal or Collective. All of it. We don’t need hope. We need Movement.

Astrological PS:
Perchance, is there a Grand Cross in your natal chart? If so, take a good look at the midpoints of those two oppositions. The 45° slant of that light just may reveal the four doorways you’ve always suspected must be there!

Credits:
Opening photo: Image from the 1986 film Crossroads. The intersection of Highway 49 & Highway 61 in Clarksdale, Mississippi – where blues musician Robert Johnson met the devil and sold his soul.

Vitruvian Woman illustration: by Victoria Borodinova—OpenClipArt