And so you’re back … from outer space …
An email from an old lover arcs into your sedate suburban life, a flaming comet of passionate destruction. Out-of-the-blue, a familiar face smiles beguilingly, inviting you to be her friend on Facebook, taking you time travelling to that place where it all began. Ghosts from the past, lovers and friends, who once towered like Colossus in our lives, suddenly reappear, ripping at scar tissue, straining against carefully bandaged memories; gifting us with an opportunity to bathe in the elixir of Forgiveness – for them and for ourselves; bringing to our awareness those places within us that still hold the currency of Victim, Vampire, Rescuer, or Redeemer Archetypes. Reminding us that we are all part of the Matrix. Interconnected in the Web of Life.
With Mercury in Retrograde effective until August 26th and Mars in the instinctual water sign of Cancer, holder of memories and nostalgia, until September 18th, we will find both Diamonds and Rust in the precious and painful memories of those we once danced with in those sepia-coloured days gone by.
People re-appear in our lives for a purpose. They mirror our Shadow. They invite us to go deep within and heal those places that still weep and haemorrhage from wounds we thought we had healed in hours and years of self-growth work. As long as a wound is not fully healed, it will bleed when someone inadvertently bumps it. Circumstances and experiences, will keep repeating the more we blame others, and ourselves.
“There are no guilty people, only people that suffer,” says author and personal growth teacher, Lise Bourbeau, “the other person is not responsible for your suffering.”
So when a person re-appears, a swift parabola from the past, we need to go within and connect with our Authentic Self. Does it feel soft and easy being with them again, or is there a sense of dis-ease and dis-comfort in their presence? What is the Wisdom in the re-union? Perhaps the lesson is forgiveness, in the knowledge that we did the best we could, given what we knew at the time – and so did they.
Sometimes we stand at a crossroads. It is time to let go, to say goodbye, to gain new experiences, to Love again. Blending our journeys may not be possible, or there may be a high fee to pay the ferryman if we forgo our own Journey and become a passenger, swept along by our partner’s dreams. These times of partings may be painful. They may come early on in our relationships or after many years. And although we may find ourselves surprised when we arrive at the crossroad, there are no accidents. The time has come to be free to plan our own journey, to embrace our own destiny.
Anyone who has loved deeply, has felt abandoned or rejected, will resonate with the defiant lyrics of Gloria Gaynor’s anthem, “I willsurvive”, or the evocative voice of Joan Baez who finds “Diamonds and Rust” in the precious and painful memories of a relationship past.
Venus (relationships, what we truly value, how we express ourselves in our relationships) now in Leo, (July 28th to August 21st) and the Leo Sun now at his flamboyant zenith, remind us to be magnanimous and also to consider why we are being re-visited by these people from our past.
If we are anchored in our own secure self-image, we will be in our integrity and be able to allow others to shine brightly; to bless them on their journey, to thank them for gifting us with experiences of love, loss and renewal.
Re-visit the past on U-Tube with Gloria Gaynor, and Joan Baez.
Diamonds and Rust
Words and Music by Joan Baez
I’ll be damned
Here comes your ghost again
But that’s not unusual
It’s just that the moon is full
And you happened to call
And here I sit
Hand on the telephone
Hearing a voice I’d known
A couple of light years ago
Heading straight for a fall