Facing our pain

[yalatorre]

For those of you that follow astrology, it is now Mars retrograde. While I may not know much about the stars and planets I often read astrology articles as my guilty pleasure. Here is what I know, retrogrades are meant to force us to look within ourselves and resolve any issues we may have been avoiding. Now, regardless of whether you believe in cosmic energy, there is something to be said about facing any open wounds we may be carrying around in order to move forward. I remember a period of time when I felt completely stuck and I felt as though I kept repeating the same scenarios, particularly in love. It's easy to say it is bad luck or that you are surrounded by assholes, but I think the truth was I was not paying attention. I had been avoiding diving deep in to my behaviors and thoughts in order to avoid the pain that still lived there.

The point is there is always self-improvement to be done. And now with the retrograde amongst us, I wonder what lessons there are to be learned now. Is there anything in your life that keeps repeating? What do you think the lesson is?

Here is the article on Mars retrograde in case you are curious: https://www.elephantjournal.com/2018/06/mars-is-in-retrograde-its-going-to-be-intense-june-26th-to-august-27th/

 

[onceuponatime.bm]

It's so funny that you posted about this because I too find astrology a bit of a guilty pleasure. I don't think my day-to-day life is necessarily guided by the stars or that ALL Scorpios are evil, but I do think there is something to be said of the patterns and paths of nature. If the moon is strong enough to effect the tide who is to say that the stars don't effect us? My family has always gone by the Farmers Almanac, which takes astrology into account. We plant our plants, potty train our babies and start projects by the Almanac.

Summer time is rough for us because when I was 4 my great-grandma died around the 4th of July, right before my birthday. Ever since then my grandpa would act like a horses behind around the middle of June until the middle of July. You could almost set your watch by it. He passed away three years ago but this year is the first time I have really stopped to mourn that part of him. Which seems crazy, I know, but I'm so much like him in so many ways. Many people revisit their grief each year at the time of their persons passing, but I've been having "flair ups" for the last two weeks and it wasn't until a few days ago that I realized the reason. Even though it made us miserable, it was a part of him and you could always count on him being mean as a snake. It was just Grandpa. He was a big ol' mama's boy and in the end it became endearing to watch him try to work out his feelings without having the emotional tools or the words to express his pain. When we realized that was the cause of his meanness we had more grace for him, gave him a little more space and a little more tenderness. Knowing how alike we are, it served as a cautionary tale for me. If I don't learn how to process my feelings and confront my grief I will be miserable every year, like clock work. This year I am going to stay more aware of myself, do a little more self-care and process my feelings as they come instead of trying to shove them down to deal with when their convenient. That never works. There is no convenient time to be grieved. I guess when Mars is in retrograde is about as good as it gets!