I heard a while back somewhere that being confused means a movement against fusion. In fusion things are bound together and all mixed up, not at all clear, there is a difficulty with separating ourselves out. Its a deep paradox that when this state begins to break apart it happens by way of a conflict whereby the disparate parts start to stir and separate but not yet in any way that is clear, we just have inklings, intimations or intuitions that there is something far deeper going on and we start to question the way we perceived things before, perhaps the way we were unconsciously affected by deeply hidden emotions and longings that we may not have been all that aware of before now.
Sometimes the conflict comes when the deeper schism between our head and our heart is revealed to us. Our heart may be influenced by all kinds of unresolved longings and conflicts, times when the longing to connect or express or be seen got thwarted in us and sent our energy astray or set it out revolving around and around and around deep inside of us at a time before we were ever able to make any deep sense of it with our own mind. And that thwarted longing that has no where to go still remains deep inside us, seeking, seeking, seeking something, somewhere, some place, ways or means to flow out so that the pain and tightness we feel deep inside us can unravel.
To the longing heart being told to think about these frustrations with our head or rational side may make us feel angry, bitter or frustrated. Why aren’t people getting it that something is evoking deeper reactions beyond the detached ones they see when we are reacting in a deeply unconscious way. There are times when our minds can lead us astray from our hearts and other times when being totally open hearted and deeply emersed in feelings sets us up for problems. We lose a rational perspective that may have helped us better to navigate what is going on. Cutting off our hearts longing in this situation may seem just too cruel, but it may be the only thing that can set us free from setting up over and over and over again deeply unconscious patterns
When I started to write this yesterday my confusion was related to several things. How much I can and should care when others I love are in difficulty? How much is and is not my responsibility? How often is my own connection to their pain a projection of similar pain, issues, longing or frustration that I went through? How important it is to keep the focus on my own life? How much can I really change for others and when is the twisted belief that I can really just evidence of delusion around the limits of my own power?
Yesterday the pain I was struggling with related to a family member who I love. A family member who had longed for me to come and spend time, a family member that I feel I may have let down deeply. I hate to let others down, everything in me wants to step forward and soothe their pain, but yesterday I had twisted myself into such a frenzy of grief and guilt it was only in talking things through with my therapist that I was able to achieve any kind of separation or detachment.
I know these issues I struggle with related to me having challenging connections between my planets of self, relationships and thinking/ perception and the planet Neptune which tends to immediately fuse with deeper feelings in the environment. Being highly empathetic I don’t have some of the filters that others have. And then Neptune rules my planet of wounding and healing Chiron placed in the seventh house of relationships. Such a placement has dogged me throughout most of my life. Nearly every relationship I have had with a close male figure has ended in tears and this theme of loss runs through my father and mother’s family as well. And the pool of loss makes my longing to connect with my male relatives even deeper than it normally would be, but it also makes my fear of connecting far deeper too.
Its interesting to me that my mother never had siblings. She longed for siblings for most of her childhood. She had told me how as a little girl with no father and no mother at home after school she would sit on the back step and watch the neighbourhood children play and long and long for brothers or sisters. When I think to my own childhood where the issue of siblings was made more complex by all of my three siblings being far older and of how I went through the loss of them one by one to marriages and of the loss of my nephews (closer in age to me than my own siblings)occurred following the tragedy in my sister’s life which split us all apart, I see the theme repeating.
Neptune planet of loss and longing is placed in my third house of siblings. The sister I was closest too died two years ago and her life was marred by tragedy, I am not as close to my other sister or brother. We move in very different worlds so there is a lot of loss and longing there in me for connection which goes nowhere and gets frustrated by their hyper rational stance on life. At times connections seem entirely too fraught with complexity and danger to the point that instead of moving forward with the longing what I tend to do is block it or bank it up inside, hiding it behind all kinds of rationalisations.
Saturn on my Moon means I fear connection at the same time as desiring it. Pulling the longing back really really hurts, but I do think there is a level on which I need to be aware that the longing I feel goes far deeper than just me, it goes back to my mother as well with Saturn on my Moon which rules mother and so there is a level on which I need to recognise that that degree of longing perhaps can never be fully fulfilled in a world where others are tied up with their own lives and relationships. Its just that way it has been. And when the opportunities come to go and connect, I pull back unconsciously out of fear.
Its also interesting to me that the planet Mercury with rules siblings and communication is still moving backwards at present. At these times we tend to introspect on deeper issue or things start to become highly charged or perculate with a hidden power that may not be fully conscious. My insight into the movement against the particular fusion that has gone to ground with the complexity of the sibling issue is now gaining momentum.
On a positive note. Over the past few years I have been able to build a loving friendship with my female cousin. Our father’s were brothers and my Dad was the oldest, and my cousin’s Dad the youngest. My father looked down on his little brother for lacking ambition. He was a public servant for most of his life, rather than a ‘self made man’ like my father. When I think about this I get really angry with my Dad on some level. The distance which he kept up with all his siblings is mirrored in the distance my own brother and his family keep up with me, his son has nothing to do with me and we live less than 5 minutes from each other. On one level its interesting to see how the pattern has repeated but its also sad.
Now my Dad is no longer alive I am free to have a loving relationship with my cousin I could not have growing up. In a week’s time our second cousin from Holland will be visiting and I we are both so excited about that. Over the past two years my cousin and I have finally been able to be friends and leave the painful pattern of the past behind. With her I no longer feel fear for I feel embraced and loved unconditionally and together we talk about so many things and connect over so many issues. Interestingly it is only in the relationship with my Dad’s second sister, my Aunty Lies that I felt this kind of care, concern and love particularly after my marriage ended. When I had the bike accident on the first anniversary of Jonathan leaving it was Aunty Lies who wanted me to go to Holland. Sadly I could not do it.
Today I am aware so deeply of the longing to connect with my family of immediate origin that has been so badly thwarted. I am aware of the places that it would be better that I directed the depth of that longing. I hope over the next year to be able to break down some of the deeper barriers and fears I feel that come when the desire to connect opens up in me, but I also know my deeper work involves on some level recognising the depth of my inner child’s longing connected to my Mum’s that I am carrying karmically. It involves recognising and looking for ways, people and places where it is safe to entrust my heart and it also involves taking care of my own heart, recognising the depth of my need and not diminishing it or shaming myself for it. The wound of Chiron in the seventh is something I need to do my best to tend lovingly with great awareness, sensitivity and respect. I will not always be able to expect this of others. I will be sad when my own wounds and limits and blocks hurt others. But I do have the tools to grieve and keep trying to act more from love and less from unconscious fear.
Emerging From The Dark Night 