Floating in the unconscious soup : late evening reflections

Mercury retrograde has me losing my earthly moorings tonight.. I feel all at sea with so many memories, realizations and feelings floating around my head is swimming and my body feels all mixed around. Today in therapy I saw connections between my mother’s childhood, her own mother’s ambivalence over mothering passed down to my own Mum and how it also affected the way my living sister was with me growing up, often she was mean and hard and dismissive and angry, there was an undercurrent of discomfort to it all, later she tried to reach out and help but I never felt I could trust her and her own detachment from her grandchildren now makes sense to me when I realize how uncomfortable my own Mum was with her inner child and how much neglect she had.. The hard treatment I received from them both in 2005 after my husband left led directly to me running away to the UK again and then having the head injury after the family I decided to lodge with kept me similarly confined.. I had the sense today as I let my body express all of this in therapy that I was always trying to fit myself into tight spaces, wearing clothes without enough room, and that in those later years to be with them at times I felt entire parts of my being had to be erased or were not acceptable.

I have felt with all of these spins I get at times also that the tightening of my muscles due to fear and discomfort and emotional repression then loosens and is like I am snapping and expanding and dissolving in my body at the same time as contracting.. In any case I know the unconscious makes itself known through the body and our behavior express emotions and themes, its what I am really feeling tonight too as Mars goes deeper and deeper into my 12th house, memories of how I abandoned my husband in my desperation to get back overseas after we both made the move back home to Oz and of that dream that i had just before moving back of the walls closing in on me after I had been ascending a spiral stair case on which there were two couples, one ascending and the other descending. this seems very significant to me in terms of what has happened since in terms of getting more insight into the family unconscious.. Often in the middle of the night as I wake and go to the toilet I am pushing against the walls.

I am exhausted tonight to be honest and I will get into bed after writing this.. I was watching a very bleak movie about a mother and her two children wandering homeless in New York, they are on the run from an abusive father and the Mum is resorting to all kinds of desperate measures to get food, and shelter as well as clothing. It is getting towards the coldest part of winter here too, so a warm electric blanket is inviting at present.. I have been dreaming a lot too, over past nights, but have not been able to ‘catch’ anything but tiny dream fragments on waking, its a good time with Mercury retrograde to record my dreams..

I am also feeling that dichotomy between present and past very strongly right now.. listening to Eckhart Tolle lectures reminds me how often I do abandon the present and living alone its easier to travel back in time, also I am not engaged in the outside world in any significant way, apart from through my blog.. that does lift me up so much, the connections I make here are truly invaluable to me… and I just realized its nicer sitting here writing than watching such a sad movie.. just being in the quiet silence of late night is comforting both to my soul and spirit, touching base through writing also helps me a lot.. I hope in some small ways it helps others to read it too, because sometimes when Mr Tolle speaks about the ego’s self preoccupations I feel a sense of guilt and yet we all have a past its really how we make our peace with it that is most important..

Today in therapy I could acknowledge some anger lingering with my sister that has, at times, made me ambivalent too about connecting.. I felt more present for her last week for some reason but I do hope to go and visit her tomorrow.. What happened in the past is well and truly in the past and its never too late to make a better relationship with others in the present if they too are willing to let bygones be bygones.