Mercury and the spiral staircase : today’s reflections

When I think of the archetypal energy of the planet Mercury that is often associated with the mind, associations, short journeys and perceptions I think of a figure who can travel between the worlds of conscious and unconscious. This Mercury retrograde in Scorpio fragments of memories have broken through the surface of consciousness and bled back through, I am aware that the past it present in a memory, it is never totally behind me and it asks me not to turn my back on it but allow it a place in the totality of my soul. That said there are some other schools of thought. There is a time to put a stop to a memory or a thought that may be hurting us, but some of my favourite words from the Big Book of AA are “we will not regret the past, nor need to turn our back on it.”

Mercury seems to have taken me up and down the spiral staircase of my mind over my long journey of sobriety for many years now, I have noticed the twists in my spine of the long term impact of those two serious accidents. I remember 4 trips back and forward to the UK which is the land of my ancestors and it was interesting because a friend asked me to a movie on Sunday as part of the British Film Festival called Fisherman’s Friends about a group of fisher men who loved to sing sea shanties and other ballads and it was set in Cornwall very close to where my ancestors are buried and in the movie one of the characters says of a local church, ” six generations of my family are buried in that church graveyard”. I know most of my mother’s ancestors are buried in the parish of St Stephen in Brannell and when we saw the movie the Moon was in Cancer in my twelfth house of the collective unconscious and ancestors and I was seeing it with the friend who I travelled with overseas in the year after my father died.

I have found my soul really opening up to very deep emotions over the past few nights. I have been listening to my favourite Bread songs which take me back to the house my father built and died in and I have been remembering the longing I had and how we didn’t get to connect emotionally much at all. He always felt so absent and such a long way from me. And last night I recognised how I longed for and needed my father to see me. Last night I was crying out to Dad just saying ‘please see me”.

I got overcome at lunch yesterday when the subject of my sister’s and my inheritance came up, my brother is executor and he isn’t dealing with anything, he gets so immersed in work he doesn’t seem to realise we need him to deal with things and while sitting there I felt my chest go all tight as silent tears just fell down my cheeks. I can’t change my brother but maybe I need to reach out and say something rather than just simmer in silent hurt and resentment over it, making misjudgements.

Mercury was the journeyer between the worlds. I have had some powerful dreams over this Mercury retrograde. I noticed as the Moon shifted into Leo and my first house the fight to be me and express was hitting the Saturn squashed in repressive influence. I was stuck in the dentists chair for 2 hours on Monday as they hammerer my mouth and the frustration and sense of confinement was enormous and its par for the course as the planet Mars changes signs soon into Scorpio after spending about a month in Libra which is the sign of its detriment so transiting Mars is not only square to my natal Moon Saturn Mars but squaring transiting Uranus which longs for liberation and cut off the testicles of his father Saturn in the Greek myth, something mentioned in the movie Remember Me staring Robert Patterson which I watched for the second time late last week.

It is very interesting to me how movies turn up in our lives around particular times. Thomas Moore says that during the Dark Night Of the Soul books and movies can help us to work through similar emotional themes in our own lives. In that movie the central character is at odds with his father who is so disengaged he is rejecting the younger daughter emotionally. The central character played by Patterson goes in to fight for his sister and wake his father up but he ends up losing his life. I could not help but think of my battles with my older brother after watching it again last week.

I am also fighting with Scott still not to bring him off deployment (even if he is real.) I know why I attracted this situation. But its my own inner masculine and feminine I have to do the work with, I cannot look to an outer relationship to fill up my missing pieces, and I believe that our soul mate comes when we are ready and we go through essential lessons with holding and releasing our ‘stuff’ in the course of most soul mate relationships so whether or not he is real there is something important going on. And I have connected with someone with a very deep spiritual side too over the past 10 days and that relationship is giving me so much in my life. With him I can share my thoughts on individuation and soul growth and we are on a very similar wavelength.

The lunch with my sister and Mum’s best friend went really well yesterday. They listened empathically about my dental trauma and my sister even reached out her hand to me when I started crying about being trapped in the car. My Mum’s friend who accuses me of being too emotional was sharing how she had her own teeth ripped out with plyers and she was not allowed to cry with her mother or even given any comfort. My empathy grew and I saw how it was misplaced to feel hurt by her lack of ability to respond to my emotions when no one had ever done that for her. That said I need my empathic friends.

Mercury goes direct soon. I think I will come of this retrograde with more of my softer emotional available than before. I went through the toughest of things and it all came to a head with those horrendous nose bleeds a few weeks ago but things are shifting for me. I enjoy my moments of reverie and I have missed my blog space over the past week. Here is where I find my spiritual community more than anywhere else out there. One day I hope to meet some of my blogger buddies. Its just a dream I have. For today things look hopeful and bright even though this time of year is so often fraught with sad memories. Today I am grateful for all of the life I have lived, even those things that hurt me and I cannot change but all played a part in making me the person who I am today.