I have photograph of me aged about 6 in my kitchen in a frame of ceramic flowers. In the photo I am holding the Koala Bear I loved that my older sister held up against the open door and closed the door on violently breaking the music box inside. This was a very distressing memory from the next six months or so after the photo was taken but it is not what always comes to mind when I see the photo which is taken on the veranda of the house we lived in and I loved and hated leaving from the ages of 2 and a half to about 7 or 8 years of age.
When I looked deeply at that little child today my heart filled with both love and compassion. She looks so full of life but also anxiety and in those eyes I sense an anxiousness for connection, love and approval. She also looks like she is wanting to burst out of her skin and the repression of feeling around her. On another note, as I was walking Jasper today and we ran into Bravedog and our neighbor and she was anxiously clinging onto him waiting for us to pass as Jasper tried to run up to Bravedog and ‘play’ I saw how he is also carrying a similar longing along with a lack of boundaries and restraint at times and possibly I have been anxious that he not be ‘reigned in’ quite as much as I was. Sometimes it seems that I am always longing for that connection and mirroring (Cancer and the Moon and a loving mother) the lack of it was a real ache not only inside me but inside my Mum a well as she revealed to me in later years before she died. However, lately I have learned I need to show that compassion and understanding to myself and that my boundaries are not always adult, yet not coming down too hard on the inner child means I also help her to overcome her fear of feeling and expressing feelings due to not being shown a lot of softness or being lovingly protected from hurtful actions of either Mum, Dad or my third sibling who obviously often felt annoyed with me at times.
Looking with eyes of love on the inner child of myself, also involves looking with love on the inner child of those I was and am in relationship with, especially my parents, siblings and the nuns at our school who could be very punishing, shaming and repressive at times. Our parents and most especially my parents generation born between 1918 and 1929 with Neptune in Leo (Leo/Sun rules the inner child) also had Pluto in Cancer and Chiron the planet of both wounding and healing in the Mars ruled sign of Aries. They often were talked down at by parent or had lost a parent due to the First World or earlier wars, they struggled too through the depression years.
My mother once told me that her mother had never once told her that she loved her. Louise Hay who was born in 1926 and has all of these placements too spoke in a video that I listened to yesterday about how she was told horrible things by her parents as a child and that her mother was similarly wounded too. A lot of her work involves meditations in which we hold the hand of our parent’s inner child and look deep into their eyes, seeing into their woundedness and offering compassion. Compassion in this way helps us to unblend or separate from the inner punisher/protector/rejector energy that sends important parts of us into exile as young ones. When these exiled parts exist in a parent, sibling or caregiver they won’t love them in us and so many parts of us will also become split off. Only a loving relationship with an inner parent who can look upon the child and persecutor/protector/inner judge with curiosity and compassion will help us to separate from that unloving force and over come our fear.
Today I feel such joy knowing that I have the vision to truly see what my inner child suffered and carried forward into adulthood. I am glad I can see her innocence and longing, as well as the light that radiates from her true self. I feel so happy when healthier self knowledge allow me to attract people like the Lifeline counsellor today who was so fine with me experiencing feelings of sadness over lack of empathy in the past. Allowing myself to be embraced in my True self in this way brings me not only healing but great expanding feelings of vitality, joy, hope, friendliness and true happiness.
(Please note Neptune was in Leo from 1915 to 1929, Pluto was in Cancer from 1914 to 1938 and Chiron was in Aries from 1918-1927 and then in 1968 to 1977. It has been in Aries too from 2018 and will remain in that sign until 2027.)
Emerging From The Dark Night 