You can’t get justice on past wrongs done to you by punishing yourself now with intense self-criticism. Similarly, punishing those close to you now who mimic those who hurt you in your early years won’t help, either. Those strategies only lead to unhelpful things like low self-esteem (or outright self-hatred) and repeating abusive cycles.
There is another way to deal with it all.
Monarch on a butterfly bush in Arrowsic, Maine; the first Monarch I’ve seen in at least two years. Photo by Amanda Painter.
That way forward and out is suggested by the chart for when Mercury stations direct in the first degree of Libra this Friday, Oct. 9, at 10:57 am EDT (14:57 UTC).
In Libra, we know that issues of relationship and justice are at play. With Mercury involved, we know that how we think about and communicate these ideas (especially with those closest to us) is the focus. Keep your antennae tuned for any new ‘truth’ that emerges Friday.
Also note that the days on either side of the station can feel especially chaotic or scattered, so try to stay focused and take your time with things.
At the moment that Mercury stations, the Moon and Mars are exactly conjunct in Virgo (with Jupiter close by), and opposite Neptune in Pisces. Venus is in the first degree of Virgo exactly opposite the centaur object Nessus; Venus and Nessus are both square Saturn in Sagittarius.
Eric gave a thorough and humane description of this astrology in this week’s Planet Waves FM, so I’m going to recap and riff on some of the ideas he talked about; they really are that important.
One of the things described by the Moon, Mars and Venus all so close together in Virgo is the potential to be especially critical, fussy or stingy — especially toward yourself. Those qualities in the extreme are not healthy for any relationship, including your relationship with yourself. Always picking at your supposed defects wears on your self-esteem; that is, your self-respect.
But where does such behavior, when it has become ingrained, come from originally? It does not come from you being an inferior being. Trust me.
Across the wheel in Pisces, Nessus is an illustration of a cycle that may go back generations. A cycle that worms its way in before you are old enough to know what’s happening; before you are able to realize that your parents are not gods, that they are not always right, and that it is not your duty to be just like them or to meet their expectations that you should be.
Now, it could be that you had parents who were pretty good about not projecting their crap onto you; if so, you may not carry around much internalized guilt or shame. But many people do find that guilt and shame define much of what they feel about themselves — such as guilt about your true desires in life, shame about your sexuality, or guilt about wanting to ‘do your own thing’.
This guilt and shame are really judgments from others that you have internalized from a young age. Internalized judgment can metastasize into some truly debilitating self-hatred. You don’t have to stay there.
What is the way out? How do you get some of the “justice” in your life, for yourself and your self-esteem, mentioned in the first paragraph? It comes through Saturn in Sagittarius, making a T-square with Venus in Virgo and Nessus in Pisces.
Saturn can seem intimidating, because Saturn asks us to work for what we want and need. Yet it rewards that work. In this T-square formation, you can use it like a lever and fulcrum: something with which to push what would otherwise be an unwieldy burden. However, you still have to provide the energy and impetus for movement.
To get out from under the ‘authority’ of internalized parental judgment in the form of guilt and shame, you have to become your own authority. That is, you have to take responsibility for your own healing journey. As Eric explains in the podcast, this is not the same as taking on the blame for what was done to you. The blame belongs elsewhere.
Taking responsibility for where you’re at — without taking things out on yourself or others — means finding some help. It means seeking out a good therapist: someone who can act as in impartial mirror, mentor and guide while you find your way through the fog and come to some clarity about your worth.
You are on this planet at the moment Mercury stations direct at the point where personal and collective meet and resonate. This message of worth is meant for you just as much as it might be meant for anybody else. What will you do with it?
Thank you, dear Amanda – and for the amazing photo, too.
Lizzy, you are welcome, as always. Grateful to know I can be of service.
Yes, that’s a really beautiful photo. Nice one 🙂
Seeing Nessus described in this way reminds me of the myth of the house of Atreus. It’s basically a byword for how abuses are passed on from parent to child, and how they can eventually destroy families. It’s also the foundation myth that explains the transition in ancient Greece from vigilante justice to impartial trials (via Athene) – this suggests that the most powerful and transformative lessons can be learned from the deepest suffering.
Amy — thank you for mentioning the myth of the house of Atreus. I’ll have to look it up to brush up on the details, but I’d say your description runs true.
I agree, we can learn deeply profound lessons from our suffering. Though I say that with a caveat: I think that without some kind of therapeutic container (or without a worldview/philosophy focused on process and progress, or community support/teachers/space-holders) it can be easy for the “lessons” learned to be quite cynical. Maybe we should call those “false lessons”? As in, the kind of “lessons” that say things like, “If I love, I will get hurt” or “I must be a bad person because bad things keep happening to me” or “People are fundamentally cruel.” I think there is a lot of that in the culture at large.
That you use the word “transformative” to qualify the lessons is, I think, crucial. And often we need help and support to find our way to that transformation. It takes a great deal of introspection, I think, to get beyond the surface experience. And then to find the resources/tools to find a new way forward and fundamental change…that is not always easy. But it’s immensely worth it, especially when it involves the healing of these patterns back through our ancestry, or our past lives, or forward into the future — just by healing in this moment.
I am grateful for everyone I know who is doing this work, and who is able to offer that assistance to others. Our healing process is our responsibility, but it does not happen in a vacuum. We really are all in this together.
As if right on cue, I just stumbled on an article that fits some of what we’re discussing here. Yes, the article is a little on the breezy side, and it does not get into the idea of “karma,” but this section really resonated with me today — that is, with the cyclical nature of wounding/healing that the centaurs (especially Nessus and Chiron) bring our attention to:
And very much worth repeating: “please be patient with yourself.”
http://mainetoday.com/blog/do-you-have-serious-issues-how-to-tell-if-you-do-and-what-to-do-about-it/