When life and things seem most dark, when people say silly hurtful things that is when I must reach deeply for the light and love within. I got triggered the other day when the stress level was high due to fires raging all around and the possibility my own town may be under threat. I ended up swearing at someone I care about and felt awful about it later, then again if I get angry I always scared it will drive love away from me.
It is said that children who come from homes where there is a lot of anger or repressed anger or other emotions fear the expression of anger in themselves. I am more wary these days of the anger that may come out that isn’t in reaction to a real threat or invalidation but only a projected or perceived one. The Buddhists recognise that it is common for human beings to suffer from distorted perceptions. I see lately that often I view the world through my abandonment ‘lens’ or ‘schema’. I carry the abandonment inside and then project it onto situations.
This happened the other day when I rang my sister and she didn’t call me back. I heard from her later on that the mobile tower was out where they were and mobile reception down and she had actually had been trying to call me all day. Lately reliving the feelings around my father’s death I repressed I see how distortions have come into my life by the fact that I was pressed to go overseas shortly after that death, which occurred on the 8th of January and I would rather have stayed and found comfort and shelter with others who were grieving. As it as Mum came over to visit my good friend and I in London in the first year we were away but the pain of my fathers death as well as his inability to connect with and attune to me directly lingered like a ghostly shadow over me over so many years. And I was drinking a lot during that time.
I buried all my feelings over so many years that its only lately the softer more vulnerable ones are emerging out from under the harder, harsher, defended ones I had to use to keep the sadness and sense of deep grief, overwhelm and powerlessness at bay. Lately these feelings seem to just over come me and I find myself looking at my current life and circumstances as if they are a dream or I am living inside a Talking Heads song : “how did I get here??”
I need most particularly to reach for the light at this time of year because not only does it coincide with Dad’s death but with the breaking apart of my relationship with my last partner, Phil. I left him while we were travelling in 2010 to come home to Canberra as my father’s niece and husband had decided to visit from Holland and Phil had a dog we could not get minded and since Mum lived in a unit he could not bring him and come to be with me. Along the way over our break communication deteriorated between us and then he got angry that I delayed my return to him and did not get to where he was for his birthday, at that point he asked me to chose who was most important to me, him or my family but my Mum had taken ill too, so I was reluctant to leave. Anyway when it ended he said some pretty nasty hurtful things, and I got angry in response where as if I had been able to respond to the hurt in him things may not have escalated as much. That said all through our relationship he struggled to accept my emotions and the lingering grief I was still trying to deal with. The ending of that relationship, painful as it was, (and it was so so painful) did mean I began the search for a good therapist which took a further 5 years of struggling through different forms of therapy.
Knowing I carry pain and damage is not easy, but I also need to celebrate the light, friends have told me they see my intense independence and it is hard for me to admit that I need others, I am still working on my boundaries as to what I should take on and not take on. When others go distant because I have reacted its a trigger for all the past fear and grief over loss of love to rise up and I can suffer suicidal ideation. But I know this happening is also an opportunity for me to do my own psychological work and look to my part in things. I cannot always blame others, at times I have to look to the part I am playing or what is rising up for understanding and release. Staying present to my deeper self is very important at times like this rather than reacting outwardly..
I heard voices again telling me I would be better off ending my life again today, this was triggered by being on the receiving end of this criticism the other day, it brought up all the other wounds from other partners who judged me. I am fairly sure transiting Mars is triggering Chiron and Pluto for me at present and my achilles heel Chiron wound lies in the seventh house of relationships, I fear and long for intimate connection and have past experiences of things not going well, but not in all relationships, when fear starts to run me I must make the effort to reach for light and love, so much rests upon our lens of perception, this rests on using our power of honest self examination to see if it is one of lack or abundance, one of self pity or gratitude, one of fear or love?
I read a very good reading on perceptual distortions in Hope For Today, my adult child daily reader today where a woman shared how negatively skewed her own perceptions can get at times. That said we must not shirk from harsh realities and put on rose coloured glasses when that is not called for but it always pays to remember that good things can come out of bad, that love, healing and peace can come out of destruction and that the power we have to penetrate our own destructive tendencies with the light and lens of love, wisdom and compassion determines whether or not we can in time use the power of our awakening human consciousness to bring light to the darkness that so often can surround us.
On a positive note the air quality today feels marginally better but even this may be a perceptual illusion from where I am because luckily my street is so full of green trees they will be working hard to put out the good energy. I have heard our town may still be under threat from fire tomorrow which is due to be one of the hardest days with record heat and weather conditions : the mercury is set to rise to 42 degrees on Saturday (Saturn’s day).
I had the thought last night that we are very close to the first conjunction of Saturn and Pluto right now and of how Liz Greene says that relates to “wisdom through suffering and purification through the ordeal by fire.” In the light of the fact that Australia has its Sun in Capricorn and this pairing of planets falls here in January, we truly are thick in that deep deep destructive and transformative territory right now.
Emerging From The Dark Night 