How to romanticize Rejection pt. 2

It’s late in the season and I was emailed by my second choice university for the PhD programs I applied to! Most programs take less than 15% of applications and I am arrogant enough to believe that I deserve to be in that percentage.

I am also successful enough, creative enough, and experienced enough to be in that percentage. But, being enough does not always guarantee a placement. That’s right, I was rejected.

I was refused a key to the hallowed halls of victory by my backup school. Can you believe it?

I can. Honestly, I can. While I had released the outcome, and expected the best (Pronoia is key to manifestation after all), I had seen the rejection coming.

While it may be in my fortune to expand the depth of my knowledge, looking at you 12th house Pluto and 9th house Libra Mercury, this season was not for me.

And I had anticipated this. Note that I didn’t say feared, or worried in regards to the outcome. Because I didn’t. I was not afraid or worried about this opportunity because I had seen the signs.

The Spirit of the Universe is a stage magician by nature, they will have you looking one way, while doing something in the other direction. Many of us, who are locked in, know that if you want to see what’s really happening you need to look in the opposite direction. You need to look at the hand doing the slighting if you will.

However, by look at the hand pulling the trick it can induce fear, anxiety, and stress because you are not the magician. What I mean is— you are not the one doing the trick. You are the one observing the trick, so even if you caught the slight you may not understand how it works. The intricacies of the slight.

So, I recommend focusing where the universe tells you to. For me, this had me looking at programs and applications and then settling back into preparing for my MFA thesis defense.

The thesis and its defense in an writing based MFA program, for those who don’t know, often consist of a 100-400 page snapshot of a creative work and then a interview regarding the creative choices and inspirations that drew you to create it.

Which meant that I was being pushed toward writing, that the universe was shoving my attention directionally back to my book and into the story.

All while maneuvering things behind the scenes to force me to evaluate whether I even wanted to be in a PhD program this fall or not.

You see that was the trick.

But first the signs: