Emerged : some reflections on dispelling the darkness of the illusion of separation

I am considering a name change to my blog. It may not work for me as once a blog has an identity I don’t know if changing it will confuse followers. Its just that I am beginning not to be such a fan of the darkness any more. I titled my blog emerging from the dark night but lately I would love to rename it to reflect the sense that I feel I have begun to emerge.

It seems to me lately that so many beautiful, lovable souls can live under a shroud, they don’t see their own light and magnificence, maybe as children (like me) they wrongly came to believe there was ‘something wrong with them’ or that they did not fit in or belong. Maybe the truth was they did not feel their true authentic self fitted into a culture which can be a killing force to the soul, one that can so easily dampen the nature essence of love and soul filled lightness and joy of the true inner child within us.

I am rapidly becoming a very big fan of Louise Hay’s work and writings. I love her take on the way we all seen to get shut down in life as kids (most especially the generations of us born prior to the 70s) and how many of us end up striving to be ‘good’ or accepted or loved instead of taught that we are inherently lovable anyway. So today after reading the chapter on Affirming Your Life in her book Life Loves You I went out and bought her book Trust Life which is a diary type book of affirmations for loving yourself every day. By a stroke of luck at my local bookshop I also came across a beautiful little book titled Love For Imperfect Things : How To Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection by Korean Buddhist monk Haemin Sunim. If you struggle with the inner critic like I do I really highly recommend this book because is has so much wisdom to offer. After finding myself literally crippled by my inner critic this week I really felt it was time to get on top of this dark loveless energy inside me once and for all.

I went off to get a pedicure after buying the book and devoured the first few chapters and the message is very similar to Louise’s, all problems start with a lack of self love and acceptance, with an need to be too good or trying to hard to fit in instead of just being present. loving, and open with ourselves and everyone else.

I remember after going to an AA meeting a while back someone after listening to me share said to me ‘Deborah be true to yourself’, and as I look back I realise I was struggling them and it is when I have not been true to myself that I ended up in problems. I also get into problems when I don’t follow the truth of my inner child’s heart to those things that bring me joy and happiness, thinking I just have to bow under, accept shit and joylessness, grinning and bearing it all!!!

Louise Hay actually started to take art classes in later life in order to expand her creative self expression because she found that art was the most natural way to connect with her inner child’s joy and inherent creativity. We can find our own creative path through all kinds of things : poetry, writing, planting a garden, in the choice of clothes we wear, in preparing a meal, in appreciating a sunset, through listening to music that resonates. We can get in touch with our heart and when the negative voices start up we can just try to convince the critic, to take a rest, or a chill pill. Maybe our inner critic needs a bit of hug, maybe he or she just fears if we don’t keep trying harder we wont be loved but the truth is if we don’t follow our heart and if we criticise ourselves all of the time getting caught up in negative voices how can we find our light? This is not to say that we should not take action to change negative things either, but it just says that focusing on what brings us joy and energy serves us more than focusing on negativity.

Lately I am losing tolerance for darkness and negativity. It’s really not okay to beat ourselves or others up. Yes it is human but do we really want to keep treating ourselves and others this unkindly? I actually could not continue to watch the television series The Path which I got out from the library last week because it shows a community of highly lost people hurting each other over and over due to their distance from their own inner child’s wounds and then just re-enacting the pain over and over again.

I do think we have to enter the darkness to find the light in time. But at the moment I feel to a degree emerged from that negative dark place. It was almost as if on Wednesday the shell containing my light broke apart with an intensity which is hard to describe and come to think of it we are smack bang in the waxing of a conjunction between the planets Mars and Uranus at the moment in the sign of new birth and authentic spontaneous self expression : Mars ruled Aries.

At times when these two planets meet we are being urged to throw off or move through restrictions to our joy and self expression as authentic beings. And as I write this it occurs to me that shortly the Moon will be joining both planets in the late degrees of Aries, bringing that emotional message home even more clearly.

Just prior to a conjunction of two major planets we are in a death or 12th house phase in which we are integrating all the lessons from the last time those two planets met. In the case of Mars which rules assertive, action, masculine, warrior energy the last conjunction with Uranus took place on 26 February 2017 at 21 degrees of Aries which is a sign of new energies, spring and regeneration.

All in all we have had 4 conjunctions of Mars and Uranus since 2011. The first was on 4 April 2011 (at 1 degree Aries), the second on 23 March 2013 (at 8 degrees Aries), the third on 11 March 2015 (at 14 degrees Aries) and the fourth on 26 February 207 (at 21 degrees of Aries). Uranus demands liberation from the old restrictions around us, but it also demands an earthing of energy as well because when Mars conjuncts Uranus lately is has also undergone a very tense (square) aspect with the other astrological heavy weight Pluto just prior. This aspect was actually exact on the 2nd of February. At this time we get an insight in to the dark spaces in us, we have to undergo some kind of intensity or shedding or face unregenerative places of suffering, pain, agony, fear and darkness in or around us or in the wider society at large.

The antidote to that dark (Plutonian view is the healing light of love (Uranus = rebellion of the true self and spiritual essence). A child’s pure heart has the capacity to view this darkness as an illusion, albiet a very powerful one. To a large degree our society is currently trapped in so many illusions. So many are striving to be more than they are, so many are not loving themselves or others as they are. So many are at war and projecting the demon out there onto other races, sexes, nationality or tribes.

A child’s heart cannot live at true peace with a state of separation between the heart of the self and the heart of the wider divinity of which it partakes which in truth it shares with each and every living soul, awakened and unawakened.

The truth is that each and every soul is a star seed, a portion of the divine, birthed from love even if those parents at the time were in a state of violence or lack of love. Our very task is to see the darkness of the powerful illusion of lovelessness all around us and shine a light into it in order to understand what gives rise to it. When we find the demon at the heart and understand it to be nothing less than a rejected angel, then light will shine and the inner child in us will have finally found its true purpose, mission and home on this earth with the entire human family. This is the kind of birth I am feeling in my own heart as the conjunction approaches. Uranus can bring much restlessness and rebellion too in its urge to be free, so do watch yourself and others over the next few days. The conjunction is exact on 13th of February in the final degrees of the sign Aries. Uranus will soon be leaving Aries again to move into Taurus and then a new set of Mars Uranus conjunctions will begin to take place in earth rather than fire signs. Taurus rules self esteem and self love and self value so get ready for more lessons in these over the coming years. Do they ever really end?

Don’t let your difficult past define who you are today.

If you do, you will live your whole life as a victim of the past.

There is a life force within you waiting to shoot out of the ground of the past.

Please trust that force of renewal.

Bow respectfully to your past and proclaim, “From now on, I have decided to be a little happier.”

Haemin Sunim