The best gift my therapist gives me is her full attention. It is something I never knew as a child.. And as i write these the words Attention Deficit Disorder come to mind, what better description of being a child who needed attention but did not get enough of it is there? And just what is the child carrying for and of the parents and grandparents and so on that later in life may come out in misunderstood behaviors?
I had the bodily awareness in Thursday’s therapy session that as a baby I absorbed the grief and other emotions of the family or collective (strong Aquarian stellium in my seventh house of relationship) and with that in square to natal Neptune in the sign of deep feeling Scorpio. In the first year of my life our beloved ‘Poppa’ was dying of cancer and often I was taken to the hospital to cheer him up. The resonances along Mum’s feminine (Moon) ancestral line are there, I think of how alone my great great grandfather felt carrying the burden of supporting over 15 kids in the late 1870’s to 1880’s. He comes through in my mediation and in the early hours of the morning all of the time.
Reflecting on the multigenerational trajectory it is no surprise to me that my Mum became an only child and lost her father before the age of 7, she and Nana struggled on alone with not much of any resources (Venus/Taurus). The loss of her father and the silence or repression theme around communication is shown in her chart by the planets Sun and Mercury conjunct Saturn Saturn relates to deprivation or repression and the Sun and Saturn relate to men and fathers.) Her mother, my Nana was one of three children, herself and had two brothers. Her mother Eliza Jane carried a lot of stress from her father’s addiction. Eliza had to fight on alone to survive like my Mum and became both a business and public house owner. In photos she looks like a very tough woman and my brother often refers to her as ‘a tough old bird.’
In truth I do not know a lot about my Nana, Amy’s younger life but her grandfather’s great granddaughter has shown me happy photos of those three siblings together although the son of Nana’s brother went on to struggle with addiction and married a traumatized woman and Julie their daughter who communicates with me alot about our shared history, has a lot of emotional dysregulation issues herself. We talk about this stuff all of the time and since Julie got to care for her mother in later life, she came to know the her in the depths of her emotional wounding, which also came to make sense of how and why she never felt that loved. Her mother was rejected by her family and constantly struggled to feel both worthy and loved and she and husband often left Julie alone, or told her she was too much.
Sadly we can suffer from not only a deficit of attention but of love and positive regard as well and these kind of issues get carried down.. Therapist David Richo writes so beautifully about how we need the 5 As as a child to truly thrive. Attention, Affection, Approval, Appreciaion and Allowing.
https://www.realrelating.com/blog/the-5-as-of-a-loving-relationship
Since astrologically Venus and Taurus relate to issues of worth and with Uranus and the North Node there at present these issues are rising up.
I have noticed this week that there is a lot on the radio about how our material needs are running out of control now, driving not only over consumption but also contributing to the burdens we humans are placing on the earth (Taurus) that are contributing to climate change.. When we do not feel satisfied or full inside enough or worthy enough inside we tend to want to acquire from outside of us, Matt Haig addresses these issues in his two excellent books The Book of Comfort and Notes on a Nervous Planet.. We then become like the hungry ghosts that Gabor Mate writes about in his book on addiction In The Realm of the Hungry Ghosts.
I started this post while reading a lovely chapter on the healing power of mindful presence in Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Living Buddha, Living Christ today. He was saying how important just being with someone who is feeling alone and struggling is, truly attending to them, listening to their cries or needs, being fully present. When we do so we are giving a very precious gift.. Often we do not need to say much other than, “I am here”, or “I understand”.. So often when we are lonely in mental illness or after trauma and neglect it is dismissed in some way, we may be told to seek artificial solutions, but if we can be fully present and open our eyes and hearts to those who need it, and even to our own hurting self, how precious a gift is that?
Lately I have been doing this mindfully present noticing practice.. There are so many beautiful things out there existing in the world we can look at and focus on as well.. We do not have to stay captive to those limiting voices from within that put us down or repress us. We can become aware of the unloving voice of negative ego that sees us and everything else as flawed and we can try to tune into a higher voice or inner parent of love.. We can get out for a walk or find a person to connect with if we recongize we are lone;y.. That may not always be easy in a society where people stay busy as a way of out running being fully present in the now. If we can a good solution may be to hug a pet.. I did that today with Jasper.. I was holding him gently while breathing him in and breathing in time with him.. That was so calming and lovely and gave me so so much.. Other days I was too lost in thought to even touch base with my dear Jasper which makes my day far more harried and far less connected and peaceful.
I also took my sister out again a few days ago.. We had lunch, talked and I helped her to get her bank pin which she had forgotten due to the ECT. She told me she does not want the ECT anymore so yesterday I called the 1800 RESPECT line here and found out how we can advocate to possibly get the order slammed on her to control her removed.. Stepping up, trying to do something when someone struggles was never a thing I could seem to do before, my own invalidationt trauma made it too hard and I had a lot of fear.. But as the Moon passed through Leo over that outing and in the day after I felt the lion’s roar rising up.
The last quarter moon squared the Sun at 26 of Scorpio a few hours ago.. A lot of the inner planets are about to change sign fom Scorpio/Water to Sagittarius/Fire soon. Mercury is now in the sign and Venus will follow. We are getting insights out of the eclipse and bear in mind that soon both Venus and Mercury will opposed retrograde Mars and then square Natal Neptune in Pisces, the ways we have been in FOG may be coming clear and we may be feeling intense outrage (shift from Scorpio to Sagittarius) in the process.. The Sun is behind Mercury and Venus and has four more days to change sign.. For me this will be a relief, it certainly has been an intense few weeks lately with so much energy rising for liberation.. Long chats with my sister seem to be helping her and seeing her moving at least a little bit out of the heavy fog her own Neptune transits.
Emerging From The Dark Night 