Anger with a smile

The confidentiality clause I signed when I went into therapy was that I was allowed to share incidents that impinged upon me directly, and without revealing identities, of course. So I’m sharing one today — had a really interesting session earlier where I found myself telling off the new guy for appropriating my narratives without sharing any of his! Mars direct in Leo?! Or according to Elsa P.:

The Moon in Aries conjuncts Venus while it squares Saturn and Pluto and your average woman is deeply pissed and frustrated. I don’t know what to say but best not poke her… or best poke her.

Ha! She’s definitely describing me today.

Mars retrograde in Leo: It’s clobberin’ time!

I am finding it really interesting that Mars retrograde doesn’t necessary mean that the Martian anger turns inward or goes away. Perhaps it is the Leonine need for self-expression, planetary retrograde or not. I’m glad to note that other pro-astrologers have pointed this out: for example, astrobarry writes about waking up ‘enraged’, and Julie Demboski writes that:

For everyone, the retrograde will bring forward issues of the ‘I am,’ particularly in terms of where we ’shine’ in the life. We will examine our own personal effectiveness, especially in how our Beingness serves (or fails) to bring us attention and interaction in the world. We’ll be acutely aware that we’re on stage in our own lives; the retrograde will make us ask, ‘Who’s the star of the play?’

Maybe because Mars is now in retrograde squaring my natal Chiron in Aries (Mars-ruled), and trine my Ascendant, and the anger is triggered by the Chirotic wound to the self, but as much as I try to be reasonable (see previous post), sometimes the universe keeps throwing you curve balls until the situation gets an appropriate response. And sometimes, that appropriate response might be an angry one.

Poleaxed!

I’ve tweeted and whined on a couple of occasions this week about being floored with the flu. I think it’s partly the result of a drain by that energy vampire I talked about earlier.

Yes, it’s the flu season but the timing, suddenness and severity of my condition made me think. I am a sixth house person, health matters to me, and I’m usually sick only once every couple of years. The last time I was this badly floored was after spending an intense three days resisting property agents trying to palm off sewage holes as liveable spaces.

Energy vampires

I once blogged about ‘emotional vampires’, but have recently come across the term, ‘energy vampire’, which is a different variation. They are sometimes also known as ‘psychic vampires’. Energy vamps as the term suggests siphon your energy.

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

The fiasco at work I blogged about exhausted me so much I took half the day off and stayed in bed past noon. Then I received an email from one of my bosses who made the mess with the report which I had to fix, saying that she is glad we ‘care so much’ and is now ‘reinvigorated’, without admitting a single fault.

As I read it, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and signalled: ENERGY VAMPIRE! I should have picked it up earlier. She drains everyone around her, and then gets the energy to carry on screwing up so she can drain us some more!

Aural textures

Is it possible for auras to have textures? Words use to describe auras tend to be visual: clear, bright, dark, murky, and so on; sometimes even in colours. Is it possible to come into contact with someone whose aura feels slimey? Where coming into contact with them makes you feel the need to scrub it off later?

Day before the solar eclipse II: 8th house savings?

One of the things the eclipse in my 8th house is supposed to jumpstart is my finances, which has been under strain lately.

Not playing the ‘Who’s the bigger victim?’ game

One of the types of people that feed off my energy and whom I am slowly weaning off are the ones who play what I like to call the ‘Who’s the bigger victim?’ game. These are the people that appear to connect with you quickly from the start by sharing their problems. Because of the highly personalised and emotional nature of the stories, the intimacy of the relation is escalated very quickly.

The relation then becomes defined by you having to rescue them or at the very least, being available to listen to their endless tales of woe, which you realise much later, they aren’t interested in solving, merely recounting over and over. Try sharing something of your own problems with them, and you find that they can get competitive, and try to convince you that you’ve got it good, and your problems don’t come anywhere close to theirs, or even better, you find you have to turn around and comfort them for having inadvertently ignited their insecurities with your own!

Walking the dotted line: Thoughts on Mercury retrograding in Aquarius at the Cancer Full Moon

[Cross-posted on my Mercury Retrograde blog.]

Elsa P.’s blog on the Saturn-Uranus opposition and boundary issues prompted me to post a comment there, and to address the blast from the past I’d previously repressed.

This is what I wrote:

Very insightful as usual, Elsa! Thank you!

Funnily enough I have my IC/MC on the axis of 19+ Pisces/Virgo, and last week I just told two people off about crossing boundaries. Much like you I didn’t say anything too nasty the first time, and ‘got a bat’ out the second, and they acted so surprised. The conversation went down with one of them something like this:

Bearing someone else’s karma

I read this excerpt from a selection of talks, called The Transformed Mind: Reflections on Truth, Love and Happiness, given by HH the 14th Dalai Lama.

Is it possible to bear somebody else’s karma for them?

Generally speaking, according to Buddhist teaching, you will not encounter the results of an action that you have not committed, and once you have committed the action, the result will never get lost, and you have to experience it. Here I think it’s quite important to make a distinction. When you suffer, you not only feel pain or discomfort at that moment, but also a kind of helplessness and discouragement. You are completely enshrouded in that suffering and there is a kind of darkness.

Recycling toxicity

I wondered a little while ago about getting upset with people who choose to live emotional toxic waste dumps. Last night, my unconscious must’ve been trying to tell me something because the word ‘tonglen‘ popped up in my dream. I know very little about Tibetan Buddhism but I do know a little bit about tonglen, having once made the acquaintance of a woman who was trying to put it in practice.

The core of tonglen practice, as described here, is by ‘breathing in other’s pain so they can be well and have more space to relax and open, and breathing out, sending them relaxation or whatever you feel would bring them relief and happiness’, literally using your lungs and heart and body in compassion to purify the negative energy and convert it to joy and happiness.

Emotional vampires

A search for a cookbook (I was looking for Nigel Slater’s Real Fast Puddings!) turned up something else completely. I picked up a book I bought years ago when I was in the midst of being drained. That book is Albert Bernstein’s Emotional Vampires, which offers advice on how to deal with people who drain you dry.

I don’t usually like self-help books but this one is an exception because it doesn’t assume something is wrong with the reader! Instead it offers practical advice on how to deal with the emotional vampires we may have to face at home, at work, and elsewhere in our daily lives. It’s not a ‘why’ book (as in, ‘Why do these people do what they do?’); indeed, Bernstein argues that sympathising with their plights, crises, childhood traumas, do not teach us how to deal with their behaviour. It is a ‘how do I deal with what’s here’ book, breaking down the most common types into five categories, each with further sub-categories. Bernstein has a website that posts the checklists and basic characterisation. They’re quite funny and worth a look — you’re bound to find someone you recognise in there.

Acting on desire II: sex and the art of good conversation

Part I

For women the best aphrodisiacs are words. The G-spot is in the ears. He who looks for it below there is wasting his time. — Isabel Allende

As synchronicity, and serendipity, would have it, my ex-boyfriend (not quite the right word, but it’ll have to do) turned up online as I was writing the previous post, and our ensuing conversation crystallised the very notion I was trying to articulate.

Our history is ‘complicated’, as they say on Facebook, but less so now that I’ve learned that the only way to uncomplicate the situation is to sort myself out. Which, of course, brings on further complications, though of an entirely different sort.