Confusion : the movement away from fusion : insights into retrograde Mercury and the Virgo Solar Eclipse

A good friend of mine many years ago pointed out an insight she had gained into the root of the word confusion and its deeper meaning.  She explained it as a going away from or turning against fusion.  In fusion our true feelings and needs are not yet differentiated or sorted out, we lack insight and we may be enmeshed and mixed up with others who are themselves all at sea and projecting their own mixed up insides onto us.

At times our thoughts and ideas may be at odds with our gut or felt sense,  our thinking and reactions may be tainted with all kinds of imprints, associations and memories from deeper layers, we may be reacting from the emotional brain or amygdala which responds primarily on the level of sense impressions triggering deeper layers of the subconscious.  The amygdala which is where we store our most potent memories functions on a much more instinctive and instinctual basis responds to smells, sights, colours, textures, subtle nuances of feelings which can trigger those of us with much traumatic memory or unhealed childhood wounds back into flashbacks.

What seems innocuous to others to us becomes highly charged with all kinds of feelings and needs we aren’t really aware of.  We can act on a hair trigger and interacting with someone who triggers us can lead to complications and confusions, at least until we can sort out who we are and what is ours, what has been triggered from the past and why we acting as we do.  How old are we feeling?  Do we feel we have regressed to a younger age?  Does this situation remind us of something important from the past? Can we take time out to move out of confusion and away from fusion?.

With the movement into confusion it becomes apparent things are not what they seem, there is an growing intuition of something more we need to know or figure out or get to the bottom of in order to reclaim our own reality and gain separation from fusion and fused relationships and states of being.

One of the things that most makes us subject to confusion is being raised in such a way that our emotional reality isn’t mirrored.  We may meet those who cannot mirror us.  We may have things that we didn’t ask for or need  forced into us, other people’s feelings, ideas, needs and projections which sets up an inward state of frustration and buried anger.

We most probably have heard the following from people at times :  You are just too sensitive.  You are crazy!  Stop reading so much into things.  You really need to get your chaotic feelings under control.  Until we understand what is happening we may even say these kind of things to our selves.

One of the more devastating aspects of not being adequately affirmed or mirrored is that we may develop a voracious inner critic that never shuts up and turns against us.  It really isn’t the kind of benevolent inner discriminator we need to have inside to heal.  It may have a loaded gun set up inwardly which is used to scare away all intruders or it may turn the loaded gun around and point it against ourselves when our frustration and confusion in relationships has no where to go, when others react not from empathy but from judgement or ignorance or a willing oblivion, or from their own deeply unhealed places and defences.  If we are isolated and alone we don’t really have another voice available to interrupt this closed loop circuit which can run over and over.

It may take some time and lot of pain before we learn to differentiate and sort out this kind of inner critical voice which can also turn against others who don’t really mean us harm but are reminding us of someone who did.  Later in life when we are set off in some way this host of confused and confusing feelings and reactions may be what sets us off on the path of learning and healing.

I am about to go off on what seems to be a tangent but due to my interest in planetary energies I am always looking at how certain issues emerge at certain times and lately I have been reflecting a lot on the part our mind plays and how it interconnects with our feelings and emotions.

A few days ago we had a New Moon eclipse in the sign of Virgo.  Virgo is ruled by the planet Mercury who in archetypal energy is the energy of mind which can operate on and travel between different layers of perception, awareness and consciousness.   In the preceeding sign of Gemini which Mercury also rules it highlight the ‘twoness’ of things.  We become aware of an ‘other’ in ourselves or others that acts in contrary ways to our conscious purposes.  We become aware of the dual nature of mind which travels all over the place, sometimes totally running away with itself and loosing connection with our bodies and feelings.  In Virgo however the subconscious makes itself felt within the body. We are made aware that we have a body housing our mind which is also interconnected with it.  IN the sign of Virgo we become more discriminating and more aware of the part perception plays in our mind and feelings.  There is a greater sense of interconnection between two levels of being.

In mythology Mercury is the god who travels between two worlds and brings back messages to the unconscious to the conscious mind, from the rich, dark, fertile underworld to the upper world.  We could imagine this energy in us as providing a link between the conscious and unconscious / subconscious mind.  We could almost imagine Mercury in this sign having two heads which can look both ways.  In Virgo the two places he crosses back and forward between are the worlds of mind and body.

We could see the body on one level as the subconscious.  What gets buried and locked away from conscious awareness still lives on in the body.  The body sends up signals and signs in response to all that has happened and happens to us.  We can learn to tune into it through mindfulness and mediation.  In and through the body that we primarily experience our feelings, but we can also very much influence these feelings by the things we say with our conscious mind and most especially with the things the introjected critic has to say as well.  In mindfulness we set up a witness that can move between the two worlds objectively and help us to become more conscious and aware.

Interestingly at this New Moon eclipse, the planetary ruler Mercury is travelling backward or retrograde for three weeks.  This transit relates to our consciousness becoming more introverted and more interested in exploring the depths which accords with what is written above.

I have a feeling that it could be these kind of issues which are highlighted over the next three weeks, but bear in mind this awareness process began back in early August when Mercury entered Virgo and hit what is called the shadow period.  The shadow period are those degree which Mercury will pass back over during its retrograde transit.  The range of degrees for this retrograde are 14 to 29 degrees of Virgo and Virgo 14 was passed over for the first time on the 17th August.

During Mercury retrograde periods we advised to slow down and turn within to explore our mental and perceptual processes.  We may feel tireder or our sleep pattern may alter around the station retrograde (30th August).  Dream life becomes more powerful and may be a source of insight.  We need to keep a looser reign on fixed schedules or we may suffer from fears of loosing control.  We can also choose to pay attention to the voice of the inner and outer critic and find out what they are saying.  We can think about how we might like to transform this inner dialogue.  We can put a bit of knife cut through the state of inner fusion that happens when such programmes run unconsciously and are triggered by others in our lives.  What are they saying to us that is damaging?  Where are they judging us unfairly?  How and why are we buying into it?

In a few weeks on 16th September the transiting Sun will have moved forward from its New Moon position between 9 and 10 Virgo to oppose Chiron in Pisces.  The Moon will then be travelling to meet Chiron for a Lunar Eclipse.  Retrograde Mercury  will be travelling back to meet the Sun a few days earlier on the 13th September and it too will be opposing Chiron in Pisces.   This speaks to me of a chance for us to realise how and where our inner thoughts and self talk can be either wounding or healing.  We may find ourselves on the receiving end of some kind of criticism during this time if the criticism is being projected outward.  We may feel more critical of others.  We may get a growing insight into how words have hurt or healed us.

Lunar eclipses are notorious for bringing shadow issues to light.  They are like an extreme Full Moon in which habits from the past can be made more visible, the trick is not to become too reactive but to take time to contemplate what it is that is being stirred up and why.  We will be being challenged during the entire retrograde Mercury period to become more aware of what we are doing to our bodies with our minds, too.  How hurting or healing are our daily rituals, diet, self care, time in nature, time connecting to the senses and nature.  I have a stream of consciousness blog that I am going to post today with this one that came to me on Wednesday after contemplating the Sabian Symbol for the 1 September Solar Eclipse which follows.

TWO HEADS LOOKING OUT AND BEYOND THE SHADOWS

The mind operates inevitably in this world of conflicts, oppositions and duality.  Yet when the opposites realise that they are complementary aspects of the one Reality which sustains and encompasses all dualistic modes of existence, they are able then to look away from internal conflicts and  beyond the shadows these conflicts generate..  They may come to realise the One Consciousness-Force, not in Itself but as the Creative Unity……

The path out of fusion may be painful.  It may lead us down roads of confusion, but if we can just go a bit gently on ourselves and realise that the movement into confusion is actually a sign that we are starting transform and feel the inner call to be more ourselves, we can find ways to self sooth in the midst of confusion and reach to those tools and persons who can shine a light for us which leads out of fusion and confusion of separation, pain and conflict into the light of consciousness and love.