As I was listening to Charles Eisenstein talk in the Mythic Masculine podcast  about the role of service in the King, the Divine Masculine frequency,  something really hit me. He says:

Charles Eisenstein: "Okay. One aspect of the initiation, the coming of age ordeal, is into an understanding of our gifts. The other is the birth of a different kind of love than the child's love for the parent. The kind of love that we could call romantic love. The kind of love that doesn't want to just take, but also wants to give.

In fact, the first thing that you want to do when you have a sweetie is that you want to give her something. Lovers like to exchange gifts. You don't want to just set that person up as a parent, although actually a lot of wounded people do just that, but a mature love, the love that is invited through eros is a love of equals, is a co-creative love, and a love of mutuality, giving and receiving.

That, to me, points to a different relationship to earth than humanity as a collective has been in. And it is a relationship where we always ask, How can we serve earth? How can we serve life on earth? How can we make this mutual? What does the soil need? What does the river need? What does the planet need?"

He shares similar thoughts here:

Some of the masculine frequency has put service into a place of toxicity rather than trusting that space of the masculine embodiment. When the masculine King exerts logic into the scope of the plan as "what's for me" there is likely a mother/lover wound that is actually asking to be seen. 

For a lifetime the feminine frequency is devoted to mothering/nurturing/creation and the masculine has felt outside of this schema. As the feminine energy has been rising, she is looking for a King to serve ... not to serve her,  per se,  but serve next to her. Feminine, of course, enjoys having someone pull out the chair and say, rest a minute. What the Queen doesn't want is to mother her lover. She wants to plant seeds with them, to bloom within him, and to grow together as a kingdom that exists within and beyond reality. 

The new masculine frequency is maybe distasteful or fearful to the patriarchy of hurt masculinity. This fear is an open wound that they will either cleanse through the fire of facing the love that really terrifies them, or hide in the sea of emotions and the salt will burn. 

Today the cosmos was speaking to me:

End of July & August Forecast for the DM & DF. 

The Sun is Sextile Mars, and the Moon is Sextile Pluto. Lilith is Sextile the Sun, and Opposite the Moon Trine Mars and Pluto. Lilith is teaching the #divinemasculine to be happy with the war and revolution of self that has been their journey for the past twenty-two days, twenty-two months, or twenty-two years. They see that they were on the right path all along. 

Divine Masculine is finally comfortable and balanced in their emotional self. Mercury entered Virgo today, and they embody this newfound communication with themselves as yes, a little new. However, it feels as if their upper heart chakra finally understands why they had to fight this war to begin with. 

Come August 4, 2024, it will be a perfect timing for them to cut loose the past karmic situations and communicate it with themselves or this other energy. 

 The mantra is "I am ready to be done with this."

Mercury Retrograde will facilitate swift changes to cut these cords from their life. Their heart fully sees why they've changed. Removing the illusions that kept them from seeing the happiness they had avoided. The first week will open their houses as Mars Conjuncts their house of Abundance (which is currently working with the Divine Feminine rising energy) They find a favorable connection to the change they want in their higher love connection. Divine Feminine may feel challenged by this. 

Week Two The Sun Shines the light on the higher changed they have made in their life if they choose to go through this portal to align all courses. No extra money spending this week. It's all about aligning to this new heart space. 

Week Three, you will find your voice. What words do you wish to speak on the other side of the Retrograde? This will change your heart and love life as Venus Trines Uranus. On August 28th, try not to bring it into lust rather than love. The shadow of this Retrograde will play games with your mind because it can be intimidating to suddenly think your heart could have everything it desires. Pluto goes back into Capricorn with the Moon entering Virgo on September 1st. 

#astrology #transits #divinefemininerising #Pluto #Capricorn  

People with trauma and stress disorders can react to feelings of abandonment more intensely than others. As feelings of past abandonment trigger memories of those traumatic experiences, like childhood neglect or abuse, these changes can lead to flashbacks, nightmares, and intense emotional struggles.  The past trauma can make them revert to more active levels of hypervigilant looking for signs of rejection. A perceived slight can trigger a fear of being abandoned, leading to anxiety and panic attacks or even worse. 

Those that have these disorders have a very hard time trusting others, which can make it hard to form those important relationships. Feeling abandoned seems to reinforce their belief that people are unreliable and everyone will eventually leave them. These re-traumatizations may send them down a spiral of unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with abandonment, like self-harm, substance abuse, or isolating themselves even more. 

You may find them becoming angry at the person they feel abandoned by, even if the situation doesn't warrant it, because it is easier to get mad and push people further away than have it taken away a little bit at a time. They might become clingy and possessive of you or possessions that are associated with the relationship due to the fear of being left behind. They might act desperately to avoid abandonment, even if it means sacrificing their own needs, or doing something you wouldn't expect. This could include withdrawing from social interaction altogether to avoid the risk of further rejection.

If you or someone you know struggles with trauma and abandonment fears, it's important to seek professional help. A therapist can help develop healthy coping mechanisms and address the underlying trauma. These people can be smiling one day and gone the next and the same thing we always hear is, "I didn't know." 

 

Eight ... it is a magical age. I can remember when my daughter was eight. Third grade (when I was eight I would have been in fourth grade) she was happy-go-lucky with her best friend, and her small circle of friends ranging in various ages. We were a part of a district homeschool program, and so we had adventures rather than sitting in boring classes every day. 

Homework was easy to finish when you have an at home student-to-teacher ratio of one. We ventured off with other families to view the salmon, learn about weather tracking, even how garbage gets recycled.  Between offsite field trips, park play dates, and homeschoolers monthly skating get-togethers, we were happy. On the weekends we would drag a begrudgingly tired father out to take a hike, walk the dogs, get ice cream, and make time to connect as a family.

When I was eight my mother was divorced, and my father lived on the other side of the country.  She went to school during the day, and worked the swing shift. Latch key I would walk my little sister with me to school,  often stopping in the drugstore to buy a little penny candy with any change I had found wandering the neighborhood. 

We had twenty-five stray cats, and I would feed them, and there was something comforting about having all of those cats hanging out in our generally empty carport. I  also loved spending time with my dog. I was already broken,  preferring to spend time with the herd of animals. Some of these memories are still blocked out because losing my dog the following year, and having the cats slowly removed was pretty devastating. 

I was already broken. My childhood had existed within the confines of domestic violence,  alcoholism, divorce and abuse. I was looked down upon at school for my odd homemade clothes mixed with my mismatched thrift store finds. We were on free lunch tickets and I often acted out in ways that only a child who has suffered will. I spent a lot of time sitting in the hallway of the school, which was our principals manner of detention. 

Sometimes I would take off on my bike and just ride. I didn't care the destination, just to be free. I knew this sometimes left my little sister alone with the older brothers and their friends,  but I struggled between wanting to protect her and wanting to be eight. The following year we would move and at nine I would have a man expose himself to us while pleasuring himself in front of our new house, and have to get myself and my sister to safety. By then hypervigilance became my normal state of being.

As an adult I feel that eight and nine year old self, and she's tired. I struggle with chronic fatigue and they've discovered that exposure to childhood trauma was associated with a 8-fold increased risk of developing CFS. I am tired for her, because she had to carry so much. And while I sometimes would rather forget (and in some circumstances have forgotten) all that she's been through, I am grateful for her

She who carried too much. She who protected me as strongly and as fiercely as she could. She who still loved and sought love. Somehow I survived that which takes so many others, and yet only because she never gave up. 

I have often been misunderstood by my peers because I stand in a stance of safety first. But I applaud my eight year self because that is how she loved herself, and her little sister, and her dearest friends. She wants for them what she didn't have because she loves them so deeply.  To want to give others those basic needs is an asset. So today I honor her.

She who carried so much, it is time to put the burdens down. You're no longer eight, and you can ask for help without fear of being discovered in the dysfunctional world you grew up in. You grew up, into such a loving and strong person, and now you can rest for a minute. You are loved, and everything is going to be okay. Let go, and release what you no longer have to control. 

Thank you!! Because of you, I am. Because of you, we survived!

Barbara xx

 

When I was a child I was left alone and sexually and physically assaulted.  My father, the alcoholic left. My mother, would go out partying and not come home for days. So my last part of my abandonment healing that I have not been able to address is that aspect of being safe. 

When I was first married I had multiple freak outs when my husband didn't come home on time. After he was in a serious motorcycle accident when he would be late at work without connecting with me, I would freak out.

We put some things in place and he would share his location or text me when he was leaving.  

Today I  am sitting here stomach in knots as he has gone off into the who knows where with who knows whom and didn't follow the rules. We are supposed to be working with our relationship right now in a very open state of trust.  Trust keeps coming back to me as a lesson about who I am trusting lately.  He said, "Be back soon." ... five hours later... silence. 

So I  sit here trying to breathe,  trying to caregive for our child, trying to ground myself and release the inflammation rising to the surface in my lymph glands and trying to keep my IBS from peeking out of the darkness. And I think, is this it?

Maybe something bad has happened to him.  I don't know.

Maybe he just wasn't thinking (per usual) about my needs and my emotional trauma.  

Either way I  am damned ifnI do or damned if I don't. 

I went back to the basic needs. I ate,  I practiced breathing,  I showered and I  keep reminding myself I am safe and I  am loved. That I  am a grown up now, and I don't need my mother to come home to protect me from the monsters in the dark.

At some point we do have to open up and trust the world.  But you also need to know when it is time to pull back your trust from those that have hurt you again and again. 

Safety first.  That is what we were taught,  but it isn't always what is practiced. 

 
About three weeks ago I had a boomerang I had thrown out early in 2021 come bounding back to me. I had ended a 28 year friendship, and with it two months later ended another shorter term, but just as important friendship. I was learning how to hold space and set boundaries, which was very new to me. 

Several hundreds of miles away, another friend that I had not spoken to in at least two and a half decades was learning similar lessons. And in that space, she found me and reached out. 

Here I sat, holding this chess piece, uncertain if I was winning, restarting the game, taking my first move... but it felt like something that was just meant to happen. Right time, right frequency. 

When she and I were free, primal, wild women, we met some amazing guys that just happened to be in a rock and roll band. (Okay we met many bands, but there was one that was special) During this time we were both growing up, and coming from immensely dysfunctional upbringings. One of the guys that taught me the most in the midst of this was taken far too soon from this earth, and the pain was just too much. She and I broke apart, and the last time I saw any members of this band, it was too much and I pulled myself away and never turned back. I saw them without her that last time, and these four photos are the last that I have of any of us in that time frame. Two and a half decades where I just walked away from the people that had meant so much to me during some of the most awkward growth periods of my life.

I told the story of her and I ending our friendship many times over the years, and the energy was always that "if someone doesn't want me in their life, I am not going to be there." Wow. What a load of BS. It was an easy out. I had a broken heart, she had a broken heart. I found a space to hide my heart, and I ran. See, when we are that person that doesn't like to feel, we run. This is the runner's energy. Every wonder why they run away?? We run when we feel. Most of the time those feelings are fear of being hurt, again. If it is a very toxic relationship, keep running. But when it means something, I hope by sharing this you will stop and stand there until the fear subsides. 

I loved Timmy, the bass player that died, like the brother I never had. Oh, I had brothers, but they were never loving and caring like he was. I loved the band members and crew, as they were some of those crazy best friends, you know the ones. If you have ever seen 'St. Elmo's Fire' - they were those kinds of friends. I made friends from all over the world, photographers, dancers, musicians, philosophers. They saw the good, they saw the ugly, and they saw the crazy. Of course as in every story, or fairy tale, ever told throughout the ages... there was the one that stole my heart. I loved him, as he was a soulmate that was very special to me. It took me forever to get over that love, rather than fighting for it. I hope that I am open in my tarot readings about the fact that love is worth it, most of the time.

But out of all of that, of course, I loved her, my friend of so many years, like the soul sister, the twin that I had always had missing in my life. We had literally grown up together. She knew me more than anyone else knew me. And that, is what scares the fearful heart most of all. At that time, I was moving into that rut in the road, you know the ones that the big semi trucks create. The space where I could turn on the autopilot and just let it drag me along. I feel into that rut for the next two decades until I started to wake up. 

My awakening was slowly coming on over the last maybe twelve years, and in early 2019 I was shook awake by Spirit. There was no longer an ability to deny that I was in a cellular and energetic shift. This would cause me to literally cut and run a year later, cutting my hair off to chin length and leaving social media to start my YouTube channel.  

This running energy came to a head at the beginning of 2021 when I realized that I push people that mean something to me away, and I keep the people around that I can fix and work on rather than working on myself. Such a big lesson that I needed to open myself up, and Spirit had been banging their head against a wall as you can see for a very long time. Spirit may have enjoyed banging their head against the walls at the Anthrax, Slayer, Metallica, and all of the other metal concerts I went to. But I doubt very highly that this was the fun kind. Working on me until I was ready to come to shamanism, which I did over the last several years, was a long, tiring journey. I thank them for never giving up.

So the other night I talked to my long lost friend and it was healing. I am grateful to have the closure, and the new beginning. We are on a new journey, and we are both in different places, but it felt like coming home. There is nothing that can mend your heart if you won't pick up the needle and thread. Today I am mending. 

Today I am also though missing other friends, and maybe some of that space will open now, too. Until then, I will honor the emotions and hold space for what may be. 

 

I have had some major struggles this week in my personal healing path. We are all working with this energy of Saturn trying to hold us down, but Uranus in the final square is breaking through the resistance. The key here is not just to be open to understanding and healing that inner wounded child that created that space of hurt, but to understand where you may have also been the one that acted from that space with others.

I have been taking part in a sacred space for months, and doing the work that I have needed to do for many years. I went into this space walls down, which is the rarest energy for me to be in. Even in my closest relationships I have walls up. Some people that I trust have been given windows into my soul, but it is the doors that I almost never open up to others. 

You can see this in my hand, because I have been working in Shamanic Palmistry for the last year, and my life hand shows that I am fiercely independent, also known as fiercely walled and guarded. But in the sacred space I took down the brick wall, opened the doors and windows and let my truth fly like a flag in the wind.

Last year I finally did this similarly with a friend that I had been friends with for almost three decades, and found myself shut down. In a phone call she did the phone equivalent of telling someone to shut up by hanging up on me. This is what my mother has done to me my entire life, shut me out when she doesn't agree with what I have to say.  So I occasionally give someone a window to look through, but never open the drapes or the doors. It was so hurtful to put that trust out there with someone I loved so deeply, and the wound was created. My response was to cut her out of my life. That is what trauma creates in those of us with trauma. You can have buckets of trauma, and you can have dump trucks of trauma. They feel the same internally, but the more trauma the longer the path feels to dig yourself out. 

At this time I was on a break from social media, delving into self healing. With my addiction of the internet gone, but the need to numb the pain, I turned to the old trauma glue to put the bricks back in place - rum. I was hurt, and hurt people then hurt people. At the same time that this was happening, another friend took a step back from our connection. It made the little stream of hurt I was already going through into the grand Amazon river where the meeting of the waters takes place. Even through these were two different situations, to me as the two ran side by side, I was in the chaos of the emotional journey where the black river and the green river where merging together. One river had been toxic for years and the other a little toxic just due to inner codependent issues. As the garbage of the one, finally mixed with the garbage of the other I could no longer see the differences between the two, and I ended up doing the hurt I had been taught and I blocked them both.

So this week in my sacred space where I was being fully open and honest in how I had felt triggered the week before and several other times, but I had been able to put that aside and learn from it, one individual told me to "shut up". I spent the next 72-hours off and on crying as the wounds of my inner child unraveled and I gave over to the pain of being overlooked, undervalued, not being heard and not being able to say what needed to be said, being shut down, hung up on, and I went back into the space of being retraumatized as that little child who was sexually and narcissistically abused for two decades. I went back into that child that as an adult built up a city of walls surrounding her so that she wouldn't have to love, or be loved; and thus could not be hurt. 

However in those tears where I couldn't even open myself up to meditation or the journey space - even if I was listening to them and trying to move myself out of the body into the space of true self, I realized that I probably had hurt those friends by virtually telling them to shut up, by blocking them. Instead of holding space and just letting them do them - I went into inner child masonry mode and closed everyone off. To be honest, I had probably been trying to fix the one friend for those three decades, and it was a very one-sided connection that was there for the lesson of putting myself first. Yet for the other, I feel regret because I did not hold space. My hurt child lashed out with a handful of sand on the playground, and I hurt their hurt child. It is a cycle that continues until we absolve ourselves of the inner pain and truly learn to break down our walls while holding distance and space for others to be and learn what they need to.

This is the empath and neglected and traumatized child's greatest learning process; just hold the space. What my inner child wanted this morning as we cried, was for the pandemic to be over, and to go out into the world and laugh, hug, speak, have a cup of tea, enjoy the sun on my face with a friend, tear down the walls, and love and be loved. She wanted to be heard, honored, and held in the space of allowance of her feelings and life experience. Try to remember that the next time you shut someone out, what is happening within that your hurt child is asking for.