Compassion And Confiding In Strangers: “The Sisters Of Mercy, I Hope You Run Into Them Soon…”

mccabe_l.jpgAre you one of those people others confide in? I am. I can be in the produce department of a grocery store and have a stranger tell me their deepest and darkest. I have no feeling about this other than I think I am well suited. I was standing behind a bar hearing tales of woe from the time I was fifteen years old so what does that tell you? But here’s the phenomena I wanted to discuss:

People tell me secrets or make confessions and I have noticed some want nothing to do with me soon after. These types often say things like, “I probably shouldn’t say this but…”

I don’t say anything but I don’t agree with them. I always think they should say the thing and more. I think they should puke it up all over the place so they’re not carrying it around and generally speaking this is what happens. There is an intense flurry of communication and then a week or month later I realize the person is gone.

Three or six months later I realize they are gone for good and my heart goes with them. It just pulls right out of my chest. It is a horrible ache and I leave it that way because I can think of nothing else I should do. That they shared their pain with me is clearly a gift. It is a gift and a curse and this is something I have been aware of for a long time.

I think I was influenced by this song, Leonard Cohen’s, ‘Sisters Of Mercy”, which I used to listen to over and over, obsessively when I was a kid, 15 years old. The song is about a world some of us live in while others seem to know very little about ir.

If you don’t know this movie, “McCabe & Mrs. Miller. That is a whore house in the video. I thought this was an interesting treatment for the song.

As for the astrology, Neptune in Scorpio on the midheaven, what else?

Sisters of Mercy – Leonard Cohen

Do I have any sisters out there?

68 thoughts on “Compassion And Confiding In Strangers: “The Sisters Of Mercy, I Hope You Run Into Them Soon…””

  1. Wow, yeah. I hear so often, “I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.” Haha. 🙂 The thing is, we humans are all so similar. So what they tell me is never really shocking. And I love hearing about it. When people start telling the truth, they’re all so interesting!

    I haven’t noticed them leave. But I move a lot. So I guess I wouldn’t notice it.

    And yes – Neptune in Scorp on the MC.

  2. I have Merc. conj. Nep sitting just outside the 12th house. I have had many people just out of prison talk to me. And I mean JUST out of prison. Once I had a person covered in blood tell me he had just killed a man!!! We were sitting in a bar, of course. Good ol’ Neptune. I carry the thoughts of those. It is not a burden to me. Moon conj. Saturn, I guess.

    Nice thread.

  3. @salomon- ‘When people start telling the truth they’re all so interesting’

    Ain’t that the truth!

  4. Avatar
    neptunetrinemoon

    This post is just what I needed this morning. It is very provocative and the comments are amazing too. I miss some of the people that posted here in 2008 and wonder if some of them are writing under a different pseudonym now.

  5. I used to listen to Leonard Cohen a lot too. I had the album that had Sisters of Mercy.

    Are you the Elsa that was on an astrology forum that was Molly Cliborne (sp?) years ago?

      1. I thought so. Nice job on the forum and blog and all. Amazing it’s been going so long. Not sure where the time has gone.

  6. People feel exposed and vulnerable after sharing. You (who’ve heard the secrets) are a reminder of their darkness. I’ve always thought this is why sexual predators kill their victims – so there’s no one to bear witness to their darkness.

  7. I’m the kind of person who overshares. You know that saying “you only regret the things you don’t do”?. Nope. I regret so much.

  8. Neptune in Scorpio conjunct Venus in Scorpio in 2nd house. As a 12th house Virgo and 8th house Taurus Moon, I get this ALL the time. People will just come out and be completely transparent with me. And its a completely open and blunt conversation.
    There’s an old saying “If you are bleeding, look for a person with scars”
    Its a certain aura or a look in the eye that tells you they’ve been deep into the shadows and have come out stronger.
    I always consider them spiritual and emotional hospitals.
    People get sick, check in (most time through the emergency room) and stay a while, get rid of the poisons, then check out never ever wanting to go back as it reminds them of a dark and painful time when they have been vulnerable.
    I always joke that people don’t live in hospitals. That’s why they tend to leave(check out) and I never see them. again…

  9. Avatar
    LA Lagniappe

    I can’t remember why I came to this post..I think it was at the bottom of a related more recent one I was reading. I’ve had this happen. Everything from the frazzled hostess/server at Chili’s when I was just going in to pick up a take out lunch order, to an Italian man on a train crying, spilling his guts out, to me and my 3 travelling companions about how he was having an affair with his engaged coworker and was afraid of losing his daughter if his wife found out, to the dancer (stripper) who lived in a tiny rear apartment next to where I once worked, who told me how she had an affair with a man she danced for when he was in town from the Midwest on a convention, got pregnant but had a miscarriage.
    I have Scorpio ascendant, Neptune first house, I saw that mentioned by someone else. It still happens, my neighbor of a year ago spilled his guts to me one random night on the front porch, he moved away soon after and I have not seen him again, and doubt I will. It’s an interesting phenomenon.

  10. I also discovered Leonard Cohen at 15, and my name is Susanne…my school english was just enough to hear the words but everything else came through the music, the sound of it all. It was higher education in the realm of emotions, all music is, for me.

    I’ve been thinking about people relating spontaneously and deeply, strangers even, chance encounters. I think it’s presence, really being there, fully, without expectation or judgment. Without anxiety or being defensive. Just a human being listening and being there.

    I know I used to scan the room, as a child, for such a person. If there was someone, I would find them. Just looking at each other would be enough to make me feel safe. Same for me, all my life. I can pick people up just by being present, they may walk over to talk to me.

    What I’m saying is, it’s not the words, it’s the body language that conveys openness and safety. Of course our body language is connected to our inner life, in that, we learn how to discern between real and fake, our own and others.

    1. I used to love that song! Haven’t heard much Leonard Cohen in years. Thank you for posting. Nice to remember Susanne.

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