A strange form of suicidality

[ilumairen]

Hi Des, I never said suppressed and I'm not sure what that implies completely.

 

Generally it is the women today who suppressing the men, but men out of love & sympathies, run circle around women more so than before. 

 

It's good that you are discovering your femininity and if you keep going, you will surely attain to heaven.

 

It means that woman as loved and cherished partner may very well respond as exactly that which is sought.

[ilumairen]

 

Liz Greene ( the psychological astrologer) has really good writings on this subject ; our need to play out this dynamic with 'real ' people .... she suggests we should not , although it also seems inevitable .

 

I would also suggest we should not; it is sad when our own clouds rain upon others, and obscure us from seeing the clear expanse of their sky. And yes, unfortunately sometimes it is inevitable. Which is why it is so important for us to find that underlying trust in the clear blue sky above, so that when others (as reflections of ourselves) see us only through their clouds we are able to see and respond to the expanse of clear sky beyond those silly little clouds.

 

*****

 

I could be hurtful to other; I could not harm him, and a feast has been set before me. To be is enough.

[Nikolai1]

Hi Michael,

 

Thank you very much for the reading.  i found it a very interesting experience nad has led me to reflect on a lot, particular my present situation.  I'll take the key material and add how I understand it.

 

The Moon stands for the subconscious mind, one's childhood conditioning and relationship to the mother. Moon in Leo as such suggests a cheerful, confident, perhaps even somewhat boastful child.

I would describe myself as a child and also as an adult as being quite scizoid in nature.  If I was cheerful and confident, even boastful then it was an inner sense of myself, rather than something that was on display.  I was always a very happy child, but socially I could be quite shy.  I saw myself as someone competent and intelligent and my earliest memories were of adults rematking on how good I was at games, puzzle solving etc.   i was the kind of kid who culd do a Rubik's cube faster than anyone else.  I was also good at sports, and if there was ever a running, jumping competition I would be sure to win it.  At the age of 5 or 6 I remember winning a trophy at a school sports day and there seemed to be lots of people cheering and clapping me.

 

Despite this outer competence I was shy and didn't like attention.

 

That Saturn is conjuncting the Moon tells us that emotional self-discipline and restraint were stressed when you were a child, likely as a requirement for the acceptance and emotional security provided by your mother.

I've always been very emotionally continent, although I don't think it was part of my upbringing as my siblings aren't like that.  I remember being very young, perhaps 4, and feeling like crying at being upset was a personal choice.  I was totally in control and would express my emotion or not as I saw fit.  I remember this gave me a feeling of power.  If a child accidentally hurt me, i liked being able to brush it off and seeing their relief.

 

Social conformity was rewarded by her and later by females in general (interrelations in a social context is one of the things that the sixth house represents). 

In my case this was a much later process.  Up until the age 16 my interests revolved around my sporting activities and my circle were all the boys I played with.  If I was good then I was popular and admired and this was enough for me.  At 16 I started becoming interested in girls.  I remember the distinct realisation that they weren't interested in whether I was good at football.  I needed to be good to talk to, I needed to by funny and original and interesting.  My persona was invented quite late in my development I would say.

 

Besides to the development of reliability and other social skills, this also led to some inhibitions to your self-expression and creativity.

My sport I loved for its own sake, my persona was developed in order to gain status, approval and so on.  I never managed to tally my own innate loves and passions with the social circles I mixed in.  It has been a lifelong problem and is so even now.  I habitually find myself surrounded by people who could not share my deepest interests.  There is no-one in my day to day life who could find this DaoBums website interesting, for example.

 

Moon and Saturn stand in an exact aspect (a sextile) to Pluto in Libra. Pluto's innate themes of power, sexuality and deep emotional transformation are here reinforced by his position in the eight house. Possessiveness in relationships will be experienced both actively and passively, in connection with the theme of emotional security. 

Emotional security has been a trademark of mine since an early age and I have instinctively been attracted to women who need that. This has led to a pattern of co-dependency in my relationship, where i offered emotional stability in return for a kind of practical, material stability.

 

Also, some kind of hypnotic power and an inclination to uncover dark secrets are among your traits - quite in line with your education as a psychologist.

This is very true, but is in line with my intellectual style which is introverted intuitive.  You could say that I always look for the patterns that lie beneath.

 

Connected to Pluto and the Saturn/Moon conjunction is Neptune - a very prominent planet as he is the "ruler" of Pisces, your rising sign and the planet highest above the horizon in this chart. It is not surprising then that spirituality plays such an important part in your life! Neptune softens and transcends all psychological borderlines as he stands for infinite space. Although his connection to the Moon and Saturn by a trine is of a harmonious nature overall, he can at times be detrimental to the sense of identity and self-definition represented in different ways by the latter two. Most of all, he can tempt you to suppress certain difficult themes by withdrawing into a "state of grace".

I would say this process sums up my adult life in general.  From a very early age I have always felt that the outer world was not the essential world.  Events in time and space, my outer biography, could not account for who I was.  This made me aloof to my own emotions - I was in control of them.  And I was also aloof to everyday life.  It has always been very easy for me to dismiss things as unimportant.

 

If I failed at something i wanted, it never upset me for long.  I was always able to see the inconsequence of whatever it was.  This also gave me a strong feelinf of superiority.  Started from my teens I started to view adults and the occupations as something ridiculous, almost childish.  It never occurred to me that people might enjoy, say, gardening.  For me it was a silly waste of time.  Garden plants die and so do the gardeners.

 

This attitude lasted well into my thirties. If I've dropped it now its because I have seen how desolate, how nihilistic it is.  It has left me in a situation where I have withdrawn from nearly all my interests and there is nothing left to propel into the second half of life.

 

In my mid twenties I first started to understand that my dismissal of the world was due to intimations of a higher way of being than I could see around me. I became aware that there was a spiritual life, but this realisation at first just enhanced my sense of the emptiness of the everyday world.

 

Both Saturn and Neptune are moving slowly, so they will continue to activate (to varying degrees) the whole aspect triangle for quite some time to come. No quick fix to be had here, rather a very important phase in the psychospiritual development of your personality as you work with what the triangle contains. Both challenging and potentially very rewarding.

This makes sense.  No dramatic changes can occur in the outer realm.  I have three young children and the iron necessity of raising them keeps my life in a pattern that can't change much.  Whatever happens I need to be there to bring in the money, cook the food, wash the dishes, put them to bed and so on.  For years to come.  Finding peace and happiness, and meaning and beauty within these fixtures seem to be the task for me.

 

The progressed Sun (the centre of the conscious personality) is approaching natal Pluto which he will reach in about a year. Already, you are feeling how your enlightened conscious self is stirring toward meeting your shadow self. It will shatter your understanding of yourself but, if you endure, leave you with far deeper self-knowledge and a new emotional foundation eventually.

Your chart has really got me thinking about the nature of my shadow.  My whole life I have looked around me and seen only meaningessness.  I have always been expecting the world to give me meaning.  It hasn't occured to me to inbue the world with any meaning of my own. The world IS my shadow, a lifetime of my own emptiness recoiled back on me.  In recent months and years, as I've written about a lot here, I have started to feel a beauty welling up inside me.  It is embodied, a kind of buzzing peace.  It makes every sittuation OK, the world is made beautiful at times by the peace inside me.  I want to give this back in order to make amends, but how and why still eludes me.  The shadow is being addressed but in a very slow gradual way and in a way that is discernable only to me because i am the only one who can feel it.

 

Challenging? For sure. But remember that any spiritual progress would come to a halt if you would avoid the confrontation with your dark side indefinitely.

It feels to me like I need to totally reverse the way I have lived my life.  I have to give and get involved after a lifetime of aloof disengagement.  My friends used to call me the hermit. It was who i was; but its a way of living that, at midlife, has become unliveable any further.  Succeed or die; these are the stakes when it comes to facing down our shadow!

 

Best wishes Michael.  Your readings are always astute and fascinating.  I think you are a very talented person!

[Michael Sternbach]

Nikolai, thanks for your elaborate reply. Make sure you keep me posted.

 

Brian, regarding your request, do you have any particular topic you want me to look into?

 

Always at your service...

 

Edited November 25, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[Nikolai1]

Hi Michael,

 

Nikolai, thanks for your elaborate reply. Make sure you keep me posted. 

Just yesterday I had a rather stunning insight which I think will help me.  I was talking to a friend who noticed that when I write I often use the accusative (you do this too much, you need to understand this etc) when using collectives such as we or one would be more effective as it comes across as less 'preachy'.

 

I explained that I was aware of this but for some reason I don't want to stop.  I want to use the accusative.

 

He said that I'm therefore using the 'you' as a projection.  The you I address in debate is actually the me and the more I use it the more i myself learn the lesson that I seek to impart,  

 

This really lit a lightbulb and made me see how 'the other's is nothing other than myself in disguise.  Very Jungian, and very useful when it comes to the task of confronting the shadpw, which I think is the way forward for me.

[Brian]

Nikolai, thanks for your elaborate reply. Make sure you keep me posted.

 

Brian, regarding your request, do you have any particular topic you want me to look into?

Not really, Michael -- and if you don't feel motivated to put the energy into it, I would certainly understand. I had always considered such things to be rather silly, honestly, until very recently. I've gained a new respect for the art, however, and your revelations have been quite shocking.

 

Actually, the earlier and much more superficial reading you did for me stunned me. You hit points I knew to be true but had never acknowledged to myself. The way I felt reminded me, in a very real way, of the expression I've seen on people's faces when Ya Mu asks them about a specific childhood leg injury while "listening" to their complaint of shoulder pain, for example.

 

I recall that my earlier reading was very similar to the one you did then for Nikolai so I read your interpretation for Nikolai above with great interest, as well as his reply. I see remarkable similarities here as well (in addition to some marked differences).

 

As to your question -- do I have any particular topic I want you to look into? -- I guess my response would be, "Do you see anything you think I should be told?"

Edited November 25, 2015 by Brian
Added parenthetical at end of penultimate paragraph

[Nikolai1]

Brian

 

I recall that my earlier reading was very similar to the one you did then for Nikolai so I read your interpretation for Nikolai above with great interest, as well as his reply. I see remarkable similarities here as well.

Do you mean that you share the same traits I write about in myself?

[Brian]

Brian

 

Do you mean that you share the same traits I write about in myself?

Most of them.

[Brian]

Nikolai, thanks for your elaborate reply. Make sure you keep me posted.

 

Brian, regarding your request, do you have any particular topic you want me to look into?

 

Always at your service...

 

You understand, of course, that you've now sent me off on an adventure exploring the chariot card, right?

 

[Miffymog]

 

I recall that my earlier reading was very similar to the one you did then for Nikolai so I read your interpretation for Nikolai above with great interest, as well as his reply. I see remarkable similarities here as well (in addition to some marked differences).

 

 

I used to do Tarot card readings for my friends and what you've experienced Brian is something that is not uncommon when more than one person sees the same reading. The way these techniques have evolved over time is to help you see inside yourself and this criss-crossing is often very easy to do.

 

So, having Michael do another one for you is probably a good thing to do.

[Nikolai1]

Brian - is The Chariot your year card?

 

Yes it is - just checked!

Edited November 25, 2015 by Nikolai1

[Brian]

Honestly, I don't know! The more I look the more confusing it seems. I've found about a dozen different ways described on the Internet for calculating the year card and, as we all know, the Internet is always right so somehow these different methods must all be correct, even though they lead to different results...

[centertime]

Suicidality is wishing to die because you are suffering and wish to suffer no longer.

 

What I am talking about is the feeling that you cannot possibly continue living. You feel utterly expended. You have no further interest nor motivation to continue. You are not suffering, probably far from it. You simply have nothing left to do and no reason to do it. It feels like the exhaustion of your life force.

 

Can anyone relate to this strange state of mind?

I just wonder if you see your role how you created this experience. How do you perceive it?  Is it just happening to you?

Or do you have some role in its existence?

 

Couple other thoughts... Sometimes life is perceived as a car in dreams. It can be a good analogy for people life.

So if your life is not going, your car stops... And then you can ask?  Why did the car stop?

Did it run out of fuel?  Do you need to refuel?

Are you aware of about the need to refuel? Recharge yourself? or do you just expect to keep going without that?

  Or do you keep pressing break that is why not going?

Did you have an accident? Too many collisions with others or yourself?

Are you aware of what is happening?

 

About disconnectedness with world...  I often wonder if the problems is not being to able to connect to others... Is the real problem of not being to connect to yourself? and should you be able to connect to youself more?  Would you be more able to connect to others?

Edited November 25, 2015 by centertime

[Nikolai1]

Centertime

 

About disconnectedness with world...  I often wonder if the problems is not being to able to connect to others... Is the real problem of not being to connect to yourself? and should you be able to connect to youself more?  Would you be more able to connect to others?

Yes, the problem presents itself in both these ways to me.  To lose your way in the world is to lose touch with the thing that steers you in the world.  The thing that steers us, I call the ego.  When this starts to get dismantled by spiritual practice it dissolves. You can no longer make a good stable connection with a dissolving thing, and you can no longer use it as a lens through which to adequately approach the world.

 

I feel very aware that I need to re-connect with self somehow.  But the self I connect with and the manner of the connection is totally obscure to me at this time.  If it could be rationally deduced, I would have deduced it.

 

Also, one other important point.  I talk about the dissolution of the ego.  Actually it isn't totally dissolved.  i notice it particularly in the form of its old aversions.  I have no choice but to continue with its dissolution by facing up to things that I have avoided.  Were I to keep on avoiding, the ego would keep going.  This is what I call confronting the shadow, which is a Jungian concept.

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

[ilumairen]

I feel very aware that I need to re-connect with self somehow.  But the self I connect with and the manner of the connection is totally obscure to me at this time.  If it could be rationally deduced, I would have deduced it.

 

Also, one other important point.  I talk about the dissolution of the ego.  Actually it isn't totally dissolved.  i notice it particularly in the form of its old aversions.  I have no choice but to continue with its dissolution by facing up to things that I have avoided.  Were I to keep on avoiding, the ego would keep going.  This is what I call confronting the shadow, which is a Jungian concept.

 

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

These words bring gladness to my heart.

[Nikolai1]

These words bring gladness to my heart.

I've noticed two types of shadow material:

 

The first kind is easy.  We start by assuming a thing is bad or wrong and so we naturally avoid it and we are totally conscious of doing so.  We address this when we come to realise that the thing isn't so bad, and that are life would be enriched if it got included in our life more.

 

The second kind is much harder.  This is when we think something is very good, and because we think its good we assume that we are an obvious examplar of this in our lives.  For example, a woman might think that it is very good and correct to spend lots of time playing with her kids and pride herself on being this kind of person.  As she confronts her shadow she starts to see that she always avoids playing with the kids and usually pressurises her husband into doing it...usually with the'you must spend more time playing with the kids' argument.

 

When we see this second kind in ourselves it is really mortifying and disorientating. It takes so much awareness to even see it.  Our shadow is masquerading very convincingly as what we think of as our best traits.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Nikolai1

[centertime]

I've noticed two types of shadow material:

 

The first kind is easy.  We start by assuming a thing is bad or wrong and so we naturally avoid it and we are totally conscious of doing so.  We address this when we come to realise that the thing isn't so bad, and that are life would be enriched if it got included in our life more.

 

The second kind is much harder.  This is when we think something is very good, and because we think its good we assume that we are an obvious examplar of this in our lives.  For example, a woman might think that it is very good and correct to spend lots of time playing with her kids and pride herself on being this kind of person.  As she confronts her shadow she starts to see that she always avoids playing with the kids and usually pressurises her husband into doing it...usually with the'you must spend more time playing with the kids' argument.

 

When we see this second kind in ourselves it is really mortifying and disorientating. It takes so much awareness to even see it.  Our shadow is masquerading very convincingly as what we think of as our best traits.

I think shadows may masquerade but It can be that we deny/ignore/bury/repress/forget the shadows...because it may not fit into the view the way of we would like to see ourselves. and there may be other reasons..

So the challenge is to overcome our denial...etc the wall we built between us and the shadow.

Remember the wall in the movie Inception?

And shadows can challenge our current often too perfect identity and comfort zone , ... No wonder one may not be eager to look at them..

The art may be how to approach them properly. It is good to know that our dim perception of the shadow may be not correct as we may not know deeply out shadows.

Edited November 26, 2015 by centertime

[Songtsan]

Oh yeah, I can relate. There is exhaustion, anhedonia, a jaded feeling of it all being bullshit - even the spiritual stuff. On another side, there might be a fearlessness and even fascination with death. I recently read that the Po (Yin soul/s) wants to return to the Earth, wants to die. It is the Heavenly soul/s that want to do and be. This is remniscent of Thanatos and Eros, where Thanatos is 'death urge' or 'delighting in entropy.' When you want to just die, its like the yang is dim, often through overuse or lack of tempering the fire. I've been like this much of my life, and its the ego that causes it.

[Nikolai1]

I think shadows may masquerade but It can be that we deny/ignore/bury/repress/forget the shadows...because it may not fit into the view the way of we would like to see ourselves. and there may be other reasons..

So the challenge is to overcome our denial...etc the wall we built between us and the shadow.

Yes absolutely! But something interesting happens psychoologically speaking.  We are only prepared to see that we are in denial about ourselves IF the shadow has already in some degree dispersed.

 

It takes great self-confidence to face up to the fact that we aren't who we thought we were.  It is mortifying in every sense of the word - I mean it is as threatening as death.

 

Before we are ready, we may often get told by others that we are in denial about who we are, being hypocritical and so on...but it is literally impossible for us to see it.  We must conclude that they are just plain wrong for making that judgment, and they need to be told.  From the position of the more aware person, the anger we show is the firmest possible evidence that the criticism was justified.  But from the unaware position, anger is merely the means by which we correct wrongs...our anger is a necessary virtue.

 

We all notice this in life.  It may be clear to us that someone is in denial, but they cannot and will not agree with you.

 

So we must accept that the shadow as a concept, may well be indistinguishable from our ego for much of our life.  It is a very. very difficult concept to understand because it looks different in every single person, it is idiosyncratic...but it is also the thing that it is hardest for the individual to see in themselves.  Who can see it therefore?

 

Only the person who has truly confronted their own shadow will be able to accurately perceive it in others.  If they haven't done this, then another person's shadow will be obscured by their own.

[Stosh]

Reminds me of that old joke, " Youre just being contrary." ...." No I'm not" ....."See ! " Where there is some rationale that people may defend against appropriare criticism, the also defend agaist what they feel is wrong or unjust. I like the line there about 'necessary virtue" tho, yep ones anger may often be self justified. Take away that sense of justice, the desire for it, and theoretically one has to deal with less anger. Ironic, isnt it? Justice and safety, the meat of a shadow?

[Marblehead]

Justice is blind and safety is deaf.

 

Without light there are no shadows.

[Michael Sternbach]

Yes absolutely! But something interesting happens psychoologically speaking.  We are only prepared to see that we are in denial about ourselves IF the shadow has already in some degree dispersed.

 

It takes great self-confidence to face up to the fact that we aren't who we thought we were.  It is mortifying in every sense of the word - I mean it is as threatening as death.

 

Before we are ready, we may often get told by others that we are in denial about who we are, being hypocritical and so on...but it is literally impossible for us to see it.  We must conclude that they are just plain wrong for making that judgment, and they need to be told.  From the position of the more aware person, the anger we show is the firmest possible evidence that the criticism was justified.  But from the unaware position, anger is merely the means by which we correct wrongs...our anger is a necessary virtue.

 

We all notice this in life.  It may be clear to us that someone is in denial, but they cannot and will not agree with you.

 

So we must accept that the shadow as a concept, may well be indistinguishable from our ego for much of our life.  It is a very. very difficult concept to understand because it looks different in every single person, it is idiosyncratic...but it is also the thing that it is hardest for the individual to see in themselves.  Who can see it therefore?

 

Only the person who has truly confronted their own shadow will be able to accurately perceive it in others.  If they haven't done this, then another person's shadow will be obscured by their own.

 

The problem is that others will perceive us through their own filters. Yes, they may see things about ourselves that we are not aware of, yet be overly judgmental. Of course, they will be projecting their own shadow on us...

 

Funnily enough, what one acquaintance admires in us, another might find deplorable. In truth, there are no good and bad traits - only perception makes them so.

 

So you must go beyond the dualism of right and wrong, and see your characteristics in their suchness. To redeem your shadow self, you must accept and understand it first of all. Only then will you be free to choose your own course.

[Geof Nanto]

 

 

This meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one’s own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is.

 

For what comes after the door is, surprisingly enough, a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad.

 

It is the world of water…..where I am indivisibly this and that; where I experience the other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences me.

 

C. G. Jung The  Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

 

(from  http://jungcurrents.com/jung-munch-scream-shadow )

[Geof Nanto]

There is a basic point about Jung's individuation process that I'm not clear on, so perhaps you and others could help me.

 

Is individuation liberation from the dictates of the archetypal realm?  Or does increasing individuation mark the increasing constellation of the archetypes in our life? Or, perhaps, could we say that individuation is simply the raising of archetypal influence from the unconscious to the conscious.

 

Unfortunately there's nothing clear or simple about Jung's psychology - and that's especially the case when it comes to an explanation of archetypes - but here's a passage I like from The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious......

 

 

Not for a moment dare we succumb to the illusion that an archetype can be finally explained and disposed of. Even the best attempts at explanation are only more or less successful translations into another metaphorical language. (Indeed, language itself is only an image.) The most we can do is to dream the myth onwards and give it a modern dress. And whatever explanation or interpretation does to it, we do to our own soul as well, with corresponding results for our own well-being.

 

The archetype—let us never forget this—is a psychic organ present in all of us. A bad explanation means a correspondingly bad attitude to this organ, which may thus be injured. But the ultimate sufferer is the bad interpreter himself. Hence the "explanation” should always be such that the functional significance of the archetype remains unimpaired, so that an adequate and meaningful connection between the conscious mind and the archetypes is assured.

 

For the archetype is an element of our psychic structure and thus a vital and necessary component in our psychic economy. It represents or personifies certain instinctive data of the dark, primitive psyche, the real but invisible root of consciousness. Of what elementary importance the connection with these roots is, we see from the preoccupation of the primitive mentality with certain "magic" factors, which are nothing less than what we would call archetypes. This original form of religio ("linking back") is the essence, the working basis of all religious life even today, and always will be, whatever future form this life may take.

 

There is no "rational" substitute for the archetype any more than there is for the cerebellum or the kidneys. We can examine the physical organs anatomically, histologically, and embryologically. This would correspond to an outline of archetypal phenomenology and its presentation in terms of comparative history. But we only arrive at the meaning of a physical organ when we begin to ask teleological questions. Hence the query arises: What is the biological purpose of the archetype? Just as physiology answers such a question for the body, so it is the business of psychology to answer it for the archetype.

 

[Nikolai1]

 The most we can do is to dream the myth onwards and give it a modern dress. And whatever explanation or interpretation does to it, we do to our own soul as well, with corresponding results for our own well-being.

There is a kind of investigation that is post-scientific.  We still continue to seek truth, but we know that the nature of the truth we seek cannot be shared. It must apply itself only to us.  Once found, it may be expressed and shared, but only as a creative event that will either inspire the other or not.  We may not attempt to legitimise it as a truth that exists regardless of our audience's opinion.

 

I think this is why Jung is so hard to understand.  He was speaking abour processes that we can only possibly understand once we have passed through the same.  He was a scientist, that had passed beyond science.  The trouble is, I think most people who try and understand him approach him as scientists, and approach the scientist in Jung.