I have read that this Pisces month would be emotional but I was not prepared for just how deeply it seems to have taken me.. I was back in a lot of immobility and big swings again this week and last night I watched the movie Hachi based on the true story of a dog that waited faithfully at the train station every day for his owner, even 9 years after he died.. There was something about this exhibition of engaged attention and loyalty that just cut so deeply into me.. I have not cried that many tears for ages apart from on Monday in therapy.
The truth is that the sad things I saw go down in my own life and the tragedy of it all was so deep, there was a sense of a great darkness that I can only give a name to that is ancestral in terms of the dark feminine grieving it’s loss of contained and loving parenting.. This I cannot explain to you in words but the sense is that the world was split off in so many deep ways from love, tenderness, connection and the healing warmth of a loving maternal presence to comfort and contain not only in my own life but going back about 5 generations of descendants on Mum’s side.
In this (at times) toxically positive culture its not easy to express or have these feelings validated but as people were crying out about a war breaking out this week in the Ukraine I could not help but feel how dark it was for both my parents to have lived through that situation and for their parents also to experience the shattering pain and uprooting of the First World War.. I sense it’s impact decimated my grandfather as he did not live that many years after he returned from that great war. I think the impact of Mum losing her father was so huge for all of us and had ongoing ripple effects shown by the Sun in my chart in a close square to Neptune along with Mercury Venus and Jupiter as well.. As I think of my sister in the psyche ward still not returning calls it seems she is just carrying so much of that in her being as well.. And this is not even something I could explain to her doctors or therapists.. I try with my family but they do not seem to be able to help in any way..
Then there is the Scott situation.. I am disgusted in the American government that they have these guys over there on such a long deployment without adequate food, and the burden is on me to help when it should not be a burden. Then another side of me gets angry I allowed myself to be caught up in it but surely this is about like energy attracting like energy.. Scott has been pleading with me lately.. I am trying to take care of my own life and world but i do believe we must help others if we can.. In AA I never would have got sober if older sober members did not hang around long enough to pass the message onto me.
Today I did some meditation on my body with the angels and they informed me that lately what is happening for me is a deepening heart expansion. They explained that when the heart opens and we deeply spiritually awaken we see less from a narrow self focused ego perspective and more deeply into the collective influences and feelings that have shaped us even if they went underground (feeling all of this as so many on the Ascension Facebook page seem to be doing lately). This, according to my guides and angels involves a vast amount of grieving if we are not to become dualistically defended intellectually and split off from ever deepening conscious awareness and breakthrough. As we burn off the grief then our energy becomes more available to give and receive vulnerable loving.
That said a good strong positive healthy ego containment is essential too.. If we do not make our own wounding conscious then we attract those who will help us to do that, if we try to blame them that is not taking responsibility for our part in growing as a spiritual being. As humans we all are wounded and when we deny this we hide behind hg defenses.
I bought a second copy of Beverly Engel’s book Healing Your Emotional Self again this week. I had bought it when I was struggling in my last relationship and curiously lost it.. In it she explains how emotional abuse or neglect leaves us feeling there is something wrong with us and without a healthy developed sense of Self.. This sense of Self involves knowing who we are and how we feel deeply inside but can only come about if we are empathized with, attuned to, shown understanding of our emotions and responses and see that modeled by healthy care givers. A healthy sense of self comes from :
Being responded to with empathy. Parents who are so self centered or neglected or wounded themselves do not see or know us and so thwart us by not showing us this empathy, or by actively condemning or shaming who we are.
Having our perceptions validated. Being gas-lighted as a child means being told what we perceived was bad or wrong and this leaves us drowning in self doubt and second guessing ourselves.
Having our uniqueness respected.. If we are not shown this respect we learn not to be able to show it to others either. If we are punished for being different in our family, shamed, mocked, ridiculed or called names we get damaged in our ability to see, know, express and love ourselves.
According to Engel the lack of positive mirroring can also lead to seven types of negative parental mirrors.
The “I am unlovable” mirror. Children need available and connected parents to help them develop, blossom and unfold a genuine grounded, authentic sense of self, lacking this they come to believe they were not worth their parent’s time.
The “I am worthless” mirror. Parental rejection or abandonment makes us believe we are worthless.
The “I am nothing without my parent mirror”. Emotionally over protecting or smothering parents do not allow their children to develop a sense of separate self and competence.
The “I am powerless mirror”. This comes from overly controlling or tyrannical parents.
The “I am never good enough” mirror. Develops when perfectionism and a sense of tight control over their child’s being gives them the message they will only have value if they meet those impossible standards.
The “I am Bad” or “I am unacceptable” mirror. Comes from verbal abuse, ongoing hyper-critical, shaming messages used by a parent.
The “I dont’ matter” mirror. When parents are self absorbed or narcissistic the message that they give the child is that their needs are not important or do not matter.
Just making sense of my own negative mirroring lately shows me where so often my entire being had to contract in order to stay alive and survive in my own damaged family of origin.. While I have so much empathy for both my parents now, I also think seeing the love and devotion in the film last night that that dog Hachi gave to his owner, a strong bond of positive attachment and regard just opened up the floodgates for me.. Which makes sense as the Sun hit my natal Chiron in Pisces in the seventh house this week..
I think due to all of the trauma they endured by parent’s parents and grand parents and great grandparents also suffered in this way.. There was so much going on in their lives they too struggled and now as their ancestors myself and each of my three siblings also struggled in different ways and most surely we were not alone in this at all as this kind of wounding does deeply permeate our current society…..
Staying true to the sheer awareness of the level of wounding I carried deep inside my heart is surely most essential and important work.. This is not a time to deny my pain and quit therapy, its a time to hang in and do the deep grieving work that will in turn restore me to happiness and a greater sense of non divided wholeness and long term multi-generational self awareness. And we are all undergoing this, but only some of us may choose not to keep re-enacting the drama dance through blame, shame or judgement inwardly or outwardly.
Emerging From The Dark Night 