The Red Cardinal, the Mirror, and the Moment I Remembered Love

A Moment of Metanoia in a Real Relationship

First published in Substack on June 27, 2026

In my last essay, I wrote about metanoia as a change of consciousness in our collective life. Before moving into Part 2 on the 7th House, I want to share a personal story of metanoia in an actual relationship — because the 7th House is where these inner turnings often become visible.

Sometimes the Self speaks in symbols so exact that the ego has no defense. Years ago, I was caught in an escalating email argument with a dear friend. I felt misunderstood and attacked. He felt dismissed and hurt. Each of us was defending our position, and neither of us could see that we were no longer responding to the real person in front of us. We were responding to an image — a projection.

The Argument That Became a Mirror In the years 2008-2010, I was involved in a mastermind group with three friends. We came together weekly for prayer, visualization, encouragement, and support. The four of us were very close. In the summer of 2010, I went on a book signing and speaking trip to Florida for my first book, The Shadow Dance & 7th House Workbook. Before I left, I responded to an email from one of my friends who was upset about the economy.

At that time, I had some rather large graphic design clients, so my own work life was going well. In my email to him, I said, “Things are not as bad as they seem.” He experienced my statement as dismissive. He had lost money in the 2008 stock market crash, and from his perspective, things were not only bad — they were getting worse. He decided my statement was insensitive and became furious with me! He emailed me back, “Do you even read the news? I just lost a lot of money in my savings because of the 2008 stock market crash and now it’s getting worse.”

I emailed him back a response. We went back and forth a couple more times each email getting more emotionally charged. He accused me of being sarcastic because I wrote, “I don’t know all the stuff you know about the stock market,” which was actually true. I really wasn’t being sarcastic. Then an email came which seemed like eight pages, where I was blasted about the state of affairs of the entire U.S. financial markets. The stock market was something I paid no attention to, so honestly, I didn’t know how to interpret what he was talking about.

As I was pondering how to respond to him and feeling annoyed by his misinterpretations, a red cardinal came to the sliding glass door and started pecking at its image in the glass. As soon as this bright red bird came to the glass, I got it that my friend and I were shadowboxing. I knew what a red cardinal stood for symbolically. I live my life by paying attention to the symbols and archetypal correspondences that are all around us. Red is symbolic of anger, number one, and it was pecking at itself in the mirror of the glass, number two. This experience immediately softened me. I remembered our very long friendship. What at first was a feeling of annoyance and irritation changed into loving thoughts about what a good friend he was. As soon as I changed my thoughts, none of what we were emailing to each other about mattered. What mattered was our friendship and our love for each other. I experienced “metanoia.”  Metanoia in simple terms means a turnaround. It is a change in consciousness. We feel a change of heart and consequently change our minds.

Looking at life symbolically, Jung’s concepts of shadow work and maintaining a conscious relationship with the Self — God within —become a way of being in the world. Healing and depotentiating (taking the escalating negativity out) of our relationship issues with others is the result of dedicated and consistent shadow work. We need the mirror of relationship because it takes two to do this work. Other people reveal our hidden selves to us and awaken what is unlived, disowned, undeveloped, or buried in the unconscious. But even more important is our connection to the Divine — to the Self synonymous with the unconscious, where our archetypal foundation resides.

Instead of sending him another email, I picked up the phone and called. I said, “Jim, I am sorry if what I said was hurtful to you in any way. I just want you to know that I love you and value our friendship and none of this matters to me more than that,” and he said, “Oh, Rebeca, I love you too.” Then we were able to listen to each other and he could understand I truly was ignorant about the stock market and how it works. I too, could now hear his grievances sympathetically and put myself in his shoes. As we communicated our love for each other, neither of us needed to be right anymore. Nor did we have to continue to condemn the other for what we said or did. It was resolved with no hard feelings.

We also acknowledged that we were two good friends who trusted each other enough to have a fight in the first place. We both said we appreciated that we could be honest and work through our differences. The best friends in your life will be like that. Sadly for both of us, our friendship eventually ended because he decided he could tell me who I should not date or have in my life. He meant well, but he was taking on a paternal role with me that I didn’t welcome.

Although he was right that the relationship did not become a romantic partnership, it did not end the way he thought it would. I am still friends with the man I loved for more than fifteen years, and in this long-term relationship, I learned something very valuable: how to be a man’s best friend. Uranus rules my 7th House, so friendship has always been an important part of love and partnership for me. Jim and I parted ways because he could not accept my decision to continue the relationship. Therefore, he left my life, but he will always remain in my heart as I have many fond memories of the love we shared.

Pay attention to the numinosity of synchronicities occurring in your own life.  Numinous is a term Rudolf Otto developed in his book, The Idea of the Holy to describe the felt experience of the holy — the mysterious, awe-filled presence of something larger than the ego. My teacher and mentor, Rev. J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. often connected numinosity with light and divine knowing, and that is exactly how it feels when it arrives in the body. The presence of a connection with the Divine is not merely an idea. It is felt and experienced. It gives us goosebumps. One of my dear clients, who became a good friend, appreciatively calls them “truth bumps.”

I will never forget these experiences. They demonstrate that we are connected to the Self with a capital “S” — as Jung called God within, the Force, the Cosmos, or whatever name we give to the transpersonal center that resides within everyone. When you are willing to do “shadow work,” you are guaranteed messages and synchronicities. They come in many forms — symbols, dreams, what people say to us, events that repeat, new revelations, encounters at just the right time, a billboard on the freeway, signage on a white truck, nature appearing as a raven, a turtle, a red cardinal, roses that start growing in a vase, or singing a song, getting into your car, and hearing that very song playing on the radio exactly where you were just singing it! These are some of the numerous ways I have experienced the Self speak. Even illness, accidents, defeat, or sudden loss can bring a message from the Self.

To paraphrase Jung, he said, if you work with your unconscious, your unconscious will work with you. At the same time, if you ignore it, it will ignore you. He said,

“If attention is directed to the unconscious, the unconscious will yield up its contents, and these in turn will fructify the conscious like a fountain of living water. For consciousness is just as arid as the unconscious if the two halves of our psychic life are separated.” — Carl Jung, CW 14: Mysterium Coniunctionis, par. 193

Messages from the Self are not always ego-enhancing. Sometimes they are urging us to pay attention, to become more honest, and to accept what we would rather not see in ourselves. Even if we have done a lot of inner work, there is always more. Suffice to say, it is worth it to know that we are being guided by messages daily and that we can process our shadow with the help of the one who knows us the most — the Self.

Trust the Cosmos that we are evolving — although sometimes, especially now, we can get discouraged when we do not understand the world and its current chaos. Regardless of what is happening in the outer world, what we can discover and revere in our inner world contributes to our self-knowledge and peace of mind. We can’t change anything we do not know.

At the same time, Jung believed that the inner work we do individually contributes to the collective unconscious, where the spirit of an epoch is formed. The Alchemists believed our moral striving for self-honesty added to God’s wholeness — to the evolving God-image. Jung took this idea seriously and wrote AION, The Phenomenology of the Self and then devoted three volumes of his collected works to Alchemy.

We may not know how to change the collective moment we are living through, but we can work honestly with our own unconscious. In doing so, we can become less possessed by projection. We can learn to love ourselves more completely — not only the polished, acceptable, spiritual parts, but the wounded, angry, frightened, immature, and hidden parts as well. The cardinal was not fighting another bird. It was fighting its own reflection!

“This process of coming to terms with the Other in us is well worth while, because in this way we get to know aspects of our nature which we would not allow anybody else to show us and which we ourselves would never have admitted. It is very important to fix the whole procedure in writing at the time of its occurrence, for you then have ocular evidence that will effectively counteract the ever-ready tendency to self-deception. A running commentary is absolutely necessary in dealing with the shadow, because otherwise its actuality cannot be fixed. Only in this painful way is it possible to gain a positive insight into the complex nature of one’s own personality.” — Carl Jung, CW Vol. 14: Mysterium Coniunctionis, paragraph 706

This is why I continue to teach shadow work. Our Shadow is the first entrance into our own unconscious. It shows us that we are not one simple, consistent, rational person. We are composed of many selves, and the birth chart gives us a symbolic map for seeing that. We are light and dark, conscious and unconscious, developed and undeveloped.

Wholeness does not come from perfecting ourselves or identifying only with the parts we like. It comes from learning to hold the tension of our opposites while embracing more of our humanity. And when we do, something mystical begins to happen. We realize the Self was speaking all along, and we discover that we were never alone.A NOTE: Since writing this piece, I have received messages from others about additional symbolic meanings of the red cardinal. One meaning that touches me deeply is the belief that when a red cardinal appears, a deceased and cherished family member may be near us. Whether understood literally, symbolically, or synchronistically, I find this beautiful.

My own love of cardinals began in Hawaii while I was writing my first book. A cardinal came every morning outside the Ohana where I was staying and sang like clockwork at 6:00 a.m. As I was leaving Hawaii to return to Houston, the last thing I did was make a recording of his song so I would never forget that sound. Fortunately, red cardinals now live in my own backyard, and I get to hear them almost every day.

In fact, when I hit “send” to publish this written Substack, a red cardinal immediately came into the garden outside my office and started singing. That is how synchronicity often feels to me — as if the outer world is answering the inner moment, reminding us to keep listening.

An Invitation to the 7th House — the Soul’s Mirror If something in this piece has awakened a flicker of recognition — if you’ve glimpsed a part of yourself in the mirror of love, or felt the magnetic pull of someone who carries your unlived and unknown parts — then you are already walking the path of the 7th House. This house is not merely about romantic partnership. It’s a sacred vessel for soul-making where the unconscious becomes visible through the Other.

In my six-week, self-paced online webinar, you are invited to dive into the deep waters of Jung’s shadow work and the archetypes that inhabit your astrological 7th House. Through the recorded teachings and course materials, you will learn to see these energies not as problems to solve, but as guides leading you home to the Self.

To learn more go to ONLINE WEBINAR.