Today has been bodily intense, the day before I turn 60 I suddenly realized with a shock yesterday I needed an eye test to renew my licence (due to expire tomorrow) and due to money juggling and so many bills due in January and to mid February I had not dealt with it.. I was just expecting I could renew it online a few days before.
I was lucky yesterday to find an available slot at a nearby optometrist, as the first few I called were fully booked out. I had to be there by 9.20 and last night was super intense. The minute I got into bed and settled images and memories from my life were just flooding me, it was like people describe when they nearly die having their life flash before them, most particularly the mid Sydney years when I met Jonathan and got sober, Sade’s song The Kiss of Life always takes me back to Oxford Street in the early hours before I met him and heard guidance to go to a certain place but I am also reading a novel Friends and Dark Shapes that is set in Redfern in Sydney about a group of 20 something flat mates and that too, is taking me back to the years 1987 to 1992 when I lived and worked there and even in Redfern in clothing boutique for a time (at a particularly low point of my active drinking.)
Life changed so much for the better for me, after J and I met in 1993 he took me out of isolation and I got sober but as many in recovery know stopping drinking is only part of that underneath that lie our patterns along with all the supressed emotional issues and development arrests we so often try to justify out of ignorance. I was thinking too of how I pulled away from him in 2002 when we returned here and landed back at the coast.. What reversion? I would not move forward, the world and everyone seemed so shut down they were not interested in emotions at all, though one friend did try to help and my sober friends were there too with all of their issues pulling me in another direction. I had moved into therapy three years before in 1999 and I know I needed it but lately I am fearing it, that therapy in some way keeps me too stuck in self centeredness.. Its a real fear I have and may be part of the reason I felt the need to revisit meetings in the past few weeks of Mercury retrograde.. A lot that I needed to learn I just could not learn ‘in the rooms’ I had deep attachment wounds and fears but lately I also think and fear I kept myself in a dependent state for far too long and was so misguided looking to family.. That said last night I remembered that Saturn transits below the horizon in our chart and hitting the fourth house do stir up the ancestral past and that underworld transit will be completing for me soon, as Saturn begins to rise on the eastern side of my chart.. Touching the Sun (see below.)
It could just be my critic on the case. this fear of being too self centered. Anyway back to present time!!! The eye exam which involved four machines and so many lights flashed in my eyes was stressful to my CNS I had to ask for a break and stand up but not with any lashing out so that IS REALLY A SIGN OF GROWTH. Kat reminded me for the 20th time in therapy on Monday that NO is the first cry of the TRUE SELF.. That is me asking for a boundary when I am feeling invaded or overwhelmed instead of just holding my breath while feeling like I will inwardly explode in rage but feeling its not reasonable to say anything.. The optometrist was fine about it.. I even got to order a new pair of glasses which cost a bomb but I do not have to pay for for a few weeks..
When I got home my body was all over the place I got a coffee at the milk bar and a bacon and egg roll which I took to the park.. I then came home and have been busy out in the garden cutting the big tree back and clearing out the cobwebs.. At this point I feel birthdays are triggering and also for the first time in over 14 years I realized last night that Saturn by transit will finally be moving over the horizon in my chart which is about us branching out to express all of the lessons we gained since Saturn entered the 12th house about 16 years before and putting them to use. When Saturn hits my descendent it also is on top of the Sun Mercury Venus Jupiter and the South Node. and today Dad was strongly on my mind as represented by the Solar configuration which also has to do with my own inner masculine and True Self. Dad made so many sacrifices financially so that my brother could rise but my brother keeps a tight fist on everything and to this day I am sure never examined the part his own actions played in any of our lives, Dad’s illness included, my older sister (the family scapegoat) confronted him over this when she was supposedly psychotic after her own breakdown and of course, after that time, is entire family sidelined her… Anyway all of this and how I react over it is not down to him not, but down to me.. Its no use trying to confront him, his defenses are too strong and its not down t me to do it.. Sadly, lately, I feel I just have to learn to live with the status quo but my strong Uranian energy hates that.
I also never got strong enough to earn my own income since the head injury in 2005 so I blame myself in lots of ways, I should be grateful for what I get but I also know Mum would have wanted me to have access to money she left and not be fearful of every cent I spend.. enough about the money issue but with Venus now moving forward and Mercury in Capricorn stationing today at 24 degrees of Capricorn it really has been a time for me to get both active and grounded.. This much activity fills me with fear of exploding or dying, I know it is probably not the reality but Kat my therapist often maintains that my fear of being alive and coming alive is massive. And anxiety levels are high collectively anyway whenever Mercury stations forward or back.. Out there in the world I have noticed a lot of impatience on the road.
Anyway the outside deck is all cleaned and swept, I rubbed back the garden table and cut back the plants while sorting stuff for lunch. My vision is really good, I only need glasses for reading.. I maintain its down to eating at least one roasted carrot a day not to mention all the others I steam.. Diet is a huge one for me especially with my dental condition.. undergoing testing like today really triggers me I hate that machine man made world. I cannot tell you what a relief it was to get outside after 40 minutes there in that eye studio and breathe fresh air.. There is a touch of autumn in the air today and clear blue skies for the first time in a while.. I know there is a rebirth going on for me on the brink of 60, a lot is opening up but that fear of death is also with me and probably always will be, maybe today it is a reminder to me of how precious each single moment is.. and to value it and show up and be as fully present for it (despite anxiety) as I possibly can be..
Emerging From The Dark Night 