I really enjoy the still quiet moments in life. I think that is why first thing in the morning and dusk are two of my most favourite times of day. There is either a quietness and a stillness that is pregnant or the feeling of things winding down as we move towards the close of the day and I find that time of dusk particularly poignant and special. If I could have designed my life, perhaps the feeling is that I would have been most comfortable living inside a cocoon where it was warm and safe and loving. My growing up years were not like this, so probably its what I was missing then that I yearn for now. And sometimes it hard to face that so much has been left behind and I am living on my own with my lovely dog Jasper, who while writing that just came to say hello and remind me its time for an early morning walk an opportunity which will be lost if I continue to write this blog.
The truth is that following the ending of my marriage I did go into a retreat. It was self imposed and I think in a way it was a reaction not only to the grief of that loss but the others that I was trying to process after years of substance abuse which numbed the pain. I Iived alone and wrote and wrote, trying I guess to birth myself as a writer, to feel deeply into myself and my past, to grieve, to understand, to make sense of it all.. to heal.. very difficult to do in isolation and then a relationship came into my life which was very challenging and I started to be pulled into someone else’s world but since mine was not yet fully birthed it was a constant struggle and so after time, that struggle ended in yet another painful separation.
The situation we were living in had been torn apart as my ex had wanted to travel. I was longing instead for a home, having done heaps of travelling in my early twenties, but because I wanted to be with him I went along on his journey. When he chose to end it suddenly, after I had made the decision to travel back east to spend Christmas and some more time with my mother and a cousin who had come to Australia for the first time from Holland, as well as with my sister’s family it was a very deep pain. This new loss occurred around the anniversary of my father’s death. At that time I had also suffered the ending of another relationship. This time however I would not be sent away and when I consider the repeating pattern that occurred perhaps offering a new opportunity for repair, maybe at a subconscious level it was just too hard to rejoin my partner again as that return would have reminded me of the hard leaving that took place as I began my earlier travels so quickly following my father’s death, all at my mother’s insistence. I have noticed with this a current loss she very much uses distancing tactics when painful emotions threaten.
My partner’s decision to end our relationship due to my delay in returning to meet him caused me so much pain. I just could not go back to the situation in which I had been living when I met him. A very quiet and solitary life at the South Coast in the house my father built just a few short years before his death.
I do believe all these griefs and my response to them did lead, in time to a kind of paralysis or at least the desire to build and inhabit a cocoon. During my South Coast retreat and prior to meeting my ex partner I just was not moving or exercising much I was also suffering the Post Traumatic Stress of two accidents on the anniversary of my husband’s leaving which were in some strange way repeats of a far earlier time of trauma where I nearly lost my life and my sister had a cerebral bleed. I was in a lot of pain and the pain had four components, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.
The planets of sudden change and trauma are Uranus and Pluto. Both planets are placed in my first house of identity. As I look back at this life I see that change, trauma and loss are indeed huge factors that have shaped who I am as a person. I tend to be very inward, I do love to relate to others, but I feel deeply and am introspective. I find groups difficult being a more one on one person and due to the pain and consequences of the PTSD at times it is very hard to get moving. As a strongly fixed sign person at times I get stuck in ruts and like to have certain routines, perhaps its a need for control of some kind after all the sudden change I have been forced to go through.
This week I am really becoming aware though that some habits of mine need to be changed. I did recently suffer the loss of my eldest sister which was yet another shock though in some way a relief for her as the situation she lived in and the bodily difficulties she had made it very difficult for her every day…. she lived with a lot of pain. That I now see was and is a necessary ending. The fundamental structure of my life is changing. I have spent the last few weeks sorting out her things and treasuring her memories and possessions in the absence of any other care in my family for these things.
I went to see someone the other day to deal with my grief. She was telling me that the way we have dealt with grief has roots in the responses of those to the massive deaths that befell them following the First World War. At that time there was not much talk of trauma and there was an implicit belief that people had to just get on and let go. She reminded me that in this day and age we are too influenced by this ideal, for if we suffer a loss the loss is always there and yet we can and must at some stage I guess make a decision to not let that sadness stop us in our tracks totally and keep moving forward holding the grief lovingly with both hands but not making a trophy of it. Those later ideas or image are actually mine. She also reminded me that there is a dual process model of grief that is now understood, That is at times we are going to be deeply immobilised by the loss and unable to concentrate and function and yet on other days we will be back in “real” time and able to move forward.
Yesterday I had a day of immobilisation. My grief was submerged and I was so tired all I could really do was rest, garden, potter and rest more. I had a light dinner as I was feeling so clogged up yesterday. Today there is a different feel to the day and I am aware of the need for movement. At times its hard to keep moving forward and I guess at times its not always ideal. Its good too to be able to be still, to be able to inhabit the body fully and meet and accept the emotions and thoughts moving through us. And perhaps there is a need to be able to achieve a balance of both as the pendulum swings back and forth to call us towards what ever is necessary for us to experience at the time. I kept getting a phrase going round in my brain while Mars was retrograde for the past few months. It was “bodies at rest, and in motion”. Perhaps it was an intuitive harbinger of this blog.
Today I am aware how precious the ability to inhabit a moving body is, even if at times the body can be a source of pain. I am glad today to have mine and will go now with my dog out into nature to experience it and give thanks for the life and body that is mine and for the gifts even of these painful losses which have in so many ways shaped who I am.
Emerging From The Dark Night 