Blow : alienated : the outsider/alien/iconoclast : some reflections

I wrote this post two days ago and when Kat sent me the copy of the quote I posted previously it occurred to me that this post talks about similar themes. :

Put a pressure cooker under too much fire and its gonna have to release the steam someway if the container of everything brewing or boiling inside is not going to blow it to smithereens. Oh wow reminds me a bit of my present Uranus transit in square to my Moon (mother/inner child/emotions) which is combust Mars and Saturn. Mum was both a ‘seether’ and a blower where as Dad was more of a container who would try to walk away smiling. Dad died earlier in his life because I guess he ended up containing too much stress, he could not just blow it off like Mum could. So in a way I am glad that at times I can blow or maybe throw a thing or too (not at anyone but around the room when I am in a bit of a frenzy on my own).

Over time I am learning healthier ways to contain and express and use my vital Mars force, I have more compassion now for my Mum and what she underwent. It was just a shame she could not always validate upsets or understand the impact of her own actions on us. We all got to be containers for her brewing storms and that is probably one of the reasons both my sister and I suffer from anxiety and hypervigilance and not more than a touch of OCD. However I also see over years that so called ‘madness’ in our family came to be associated with lively life energy trying to ‘out’ and this energy was then pushed back in or went sideways and manifested in dis-ease or illness.

When I feel shame or guilt for anger (often borne in conditions of powerlessness or helplessness where forces are impinging upon me that restrict my life force moving forward) my therapist always reminds me “Deb, anger is a cry from the true self, without it you are basically stuffed.” So anger is related to boundaries and I have never been that good at those. The strong Neptune in me would rather go all amorphous or amoebic and on that subject I remember a great few paragraphs of Alaine de Botton’s book Essays In Love which discussed just this issue.

We may go all amoebic around others in order to incorporate them into ourselves or try to shape ourselves to others and then we can end up loosing our edge or psychological integrity. That said the desire for relationship and connection always vies with our need to be an individual and separate as well, it is a constant dance between polarities that manifests in many varied and assorted ways and struggles for each of us. Of course in relationships we need to attune to others as best we can. The difficulty may come when we take on too much of their expectations or projections or end up as empaths, losing our own boundary and absorbing stuff or rejecting it. We may also lose our way to our more positive and helpful emotions which may become eclipsed by the storms or demands of others at times or through excessive mirroring (mirror neurons can pick up others energy and express it).

In Buddhism it is said that the Self is just a construct of thoughts, where as Jung believed the Self was a deeply soulful and spiritual part of us that had deep intentions for our life, expression and beingness. The following saying from Saint Irenaeus explains this

“The glory of God is the human person who is fully alive.”

This equates with the idea that some of us have what therapist James Hillman calls an animating daimon or spiritual seed energy that requires us to grow a certain way, it graces us with innate characteristics, qualities and gifts which may be stymied by conditioning or our own negative self evaluation. And when we sacrifice or bury these to ‘fit in’ or excise parts of ourselves or just feel such qualities mark us out as ‘bad’, ‘wrong’ or ‘selfish’, we end up suffering often from depression (a pressing down of vital true life force!)

This brings me to the idea of the alien or the outsider, something that figured as an archetype a lot in the work of musician David Bowie. Bowie portrayed androgynous characters and shape shifters, the sense of being alienated in space was expressed in several of his songs and his last musical Lazarus also seems to focus on this concept from the bare minimum I know of it. Many of us probably identify with this archetype of the outsider, alien, or scapegoat. And there is something challenging about being an ‘outsider’ when we may also possess a deep need and urge to belong. If we are a little bit of an iconoclast or have strong views then we will inevitably end up alienating others at times. I have read that this is one of the fact of those with a strong astrological archetypal signature of Uranus.

So to be ourselves may sometimes require we are not loved or liked. It may mean we are exiled, scapegoated, misunderstood or sent into exile (or chose it as a life choice!) If like Julian Assange we also try to point out inconvenient truths that upset the dominant status quo of the powers that be we will also be subject to negative projections something artist George Gittoes addressed in a recent conversation with radio personality Philip Adams last week about his friend who he recently went to visit with his partner.

In the end what people see in us and project upon us will also say a lot about them and their negative or positive shadow (hidden from view psychological qualities). Some rebels or truth tellers or status quo upsetters will be seen, embraced, loved and understood by people more easily. Others will find themselves rejected, exiled or alienated.

Jn the final analysis all we have if we want to live authentically to our ‘soul’s code’ is our true self the unique signature or soul note or vibration that is ours the one life called us into existence to express and nurture fully. When we loose our way to that then we are well and truly lost for however long our personal journey decrees!!! But the urge to find it back, to uncover the seed and find the right conditions to replant it, which many of us may have to do in order to fully grow and blossom away from stultifying, cramping or limiting environments will never really die, it will always be heard as some kind of deeper calling, pain, sore spot or injury of the soul which constantly seeks a surreptitious way to get our attention.