I wrote this blog a few days ago but didn’t post it until today.
One of the very sad things about trauma is how it takes us into the dark and can keep us trapped there, sometimes for years. We loose our trust in life and we get too scared to re-engage again. Our nervous systems can be severely discombobulated too, which makes negotiating even simple daily tasks difficult. A little recovery taking place makes it easier to actually be able to negotiate those necessary tasks that may have gone to the wayside when we were so overloaded with trauma. We feel a little lightening once we can re-engage for a time, sort out that pile of papers, clean out a closet or some other clutter, wash things that may have been accumulating dust.
Over here in the southern hemisphere light is returning too, so I am aware that this ability now to begin to re-engage could also be a sign that we are coming out of a very long and extremely wet winter and beginning to feel the stirrings of spring. Signs of life are all around me in my garden, bluebells, daisies and my snow ball tree are bursting into bloom and the other day I saw a little yellow headed freesia poking its head out of the cracks in the brick in my paving
These signs of life are a metaphor for me of what it feels like to begin to emerge from the dark night of trauma. I feel this emerging comes once we have become so familiar with our symptoms that on some level we have made peace with them. In any case we become less resistant to our pain and less averse to feeling it and it even seems to me that in taking this approach we are birthing a wider and more spacious heart that is capable of feeling and making a place within the dark for all of the love that wishes to birth within us.
I see these signs of love and light emergence all around me at present, in the blogs of those who share the ways in which they are growing towards and beginning to embody more of the light. In the understanding that is beginning to be shown to those living with trauma and mental illness. In the compassion within the hearts of those that are able to tolerate pain and suffering and in showing mercy bring softness and soothing to that pain and suffering. Could it be that we are currently undergoing an awakening and a returning of the light on this planet even amidst great darkness? Dare we hope for a brighter future?
I could be feeling especially uplifted at the moment as the Sun moves towards its annual opposition with my ruling planet Uranus over the next 5 or 6 days. Ruler of shocks, sudden separation and trauma, Uranus also relates to concepts of spiritual awakening and emergence, the urge within the soul and life to embrace and express our true soul, individuality and authenticity, an enlarged awareness of our interconnection on an energic level with others and with all living things. Uranus also rules mental telepathy and technologies which we use to improve connectedness and enhance enlightenment.
Uranus I believe sheds light on the dark and unconscious places both within ourselves and humanity. We have recently came out of a long period in which Uranus was squaring (placed in a challenging and growth producing relationship) with the plant Pluto which rules all issues of darkness, abuse, traumas gone secret as well as issues of authenticity and transformation. Pluto shows us where, like the proverbial snake we need to slough off old skins and layers which impede the full expression of who we are as souls and spirits, both on a personal and a collective level.
Many of us have been undergoing death of old ways of being. Trauma has faced us with all the ways in which our spirits are not being served or freed to express as they need. Trauma encourages us to stay with our pain, long enough to find the seeds of awakening and healing within the wound and pain, transforming that pain in the furnace of clear seeing and feeling which can hurt as it burns clean old illusions and defences.
Over the past few days I have been feeling a sense of light and hope and possibility returning, an inner impulse to reach out to others. Yesterday I met my Mum and sister for lunch in the café that we used to take my disabled sister (who died 2 years ago) to. While we were sitting there the mother of the owner came over to us and we told her about my sister, she was unaware Judy had died in 2014, both Mum and I were able to cry and despite the pain I had a real sense of the love that both the owner and his mother showed to my sister when she was alive. So many times I wheeled her to that café and we sat and shared time there together.
I had the sense that although I do miss my sister the pain was not as deep as it used to be, life has moved on, I have processed so much sadness over recent years and all of that sadness was an indication of much I loved my sister, but how painful it was to see her never free of life denying meds that robbed her spirit. Despite this she was still a light to others and is so deeply missed.
Last night in bed a lot of my PTSD trauma played up, I was trying to hold myself still in the midst of the traumatic imprints that hit me each night when my head hits the pillow. I was aware of my father’s spirit very close to me as these words of his came to mind. “Just remember, life is for the living and life goes on.” I realised how often, due to the pain of unresolved grieving, I have held myself back from life. And I gained realisations about how until grief is fully negotiated, that is only natural.
I was aware of all the times I longed to be close to my Dad but could not be. I thought about our last fight on the night before he was admitted to hospital for the last time. I heard his sorry for the way he had reacted to me blowing up the engine of the car on the return trip from Sydney to drop my then boyfriend to the plane which was taking him over to India.
And yet I was also aware of the worry that he must have had that I was in a relationship with a person he could not fully trust or respect, who had abandoned his daughter on the side of the road in a town a thousand miles from home after an argument, with no money and no belongings. And who would abandon her all over again a few months later when chance bought us back together in Greece. I remembered the time Dad and I were most close riding the Cha Cha at the summer fair held every year at the bottom of Hanging Rock close to our coast house on the cliff. Was it Uranus dislodging all of these insights and memories from the depths of me. After a few hours I fell into a shallow sleep only broken by a few awakenings but no more knife edge traumatic slow burn severings.
Today I am beginning to feel that perhaps all the dark experiences of my life were actually calls for me to awaken to love. That I show myself that love when I refuse to run from my painful symptoms and instead face into them and use my breath to deepened the connection within to the pain, as difficult at this process is and then release comes. I feel it is as though the pain wants to be recognised and only then will it leave me, or the pain is a message about how and where I am holding myself back out of fear. These days I must face my fears, I must face my depths, I cannot run and hide any more. When I deny myself and my feelings or symptoms or resist them I am denying love.
It seems to me that some kind of new beginning is happening for me. I have been making some connections with others with whom I can share from heart to heart. I am really feeling my ruling planet Uranus rumbling away deep within asking me to wake up and open my heart to life, to love, to healing.
Emerging From The Dark Night 