And intense piece for the current Mars Pluto opposition..
Following up on the video about finding the love your soul is looking for, I do think the more conscious you are the better your odds. For example some people deny the idea they want or need love so they should not be surprised if it does not find them. To be conscious of yourself or at least willing to become so also seems very important to me. For example someone who constantly projects is going to have a hard time finding love because they reflect it. They literally bounce everything that comes to them back at the other person and then wonder why they are bereft.
But if you can get around those two, I’d say the next step is figure out just exactly who you are and who you are looking for and in my experience this process brings joy and pain… mostly pain. Pain that is productive but pain just the same.
For example with the soldier, when we were young he was obviously very comfortable with violence and I was very uncomfortable with it. It would be simplistic but you could say we did not marry because of this and you would not be that far off. I just could not resign myself or resolve the idea I be married to what people characterized as an assassin. Much safer to take a different road, yes? So I did.
But I am older now and willing to let go the fantasy that I am not violent or do not approve of violence in certain circumstance and this has been very hard. People have a way they like to see themselves and I am no exception. Having Libra I would certainly want to consider myself “nice”. There must be a peaceful solution, right? But over these years of the soldier sharing his experience and I have had no choice but to come to a new conclusion. For example what about the guy with all the snuff films?
At one point in his career the soldier captured someone as he was ordered to, and this guy had a library of snuff films. There were dozens and dozens of videos of him killing women while having sex… maybe 100 videos if you can believe that. So here’s the soldier with evidence that is irrefutable so what should he do with this guy? Should he kill him? Or should he give him a ride to town so he can find some more victims?
What would be justice for this guy who had murdered all these women – people’s daughters, mothers and / or wives? What is the RIGHT thing to do? What does God want him to do, hmm?
Well if it were up to him, the soldier would have just killed him and be done with it but his orders were to bring him back alive and this is what he did. But maybe you get the idea….
Had he killed that guy and told me that he killed that guy I think I’d have done little more than shrug. But back when I was 17, 18, 19 and 20… back when I knew the soldier then I am not sure I’d have been able to have that reaction. The question was not put to me but I am pretty sure if it had been, I’d have wanted to argue rather than look deeper because I was so attached to the idea I ought to renounce all violence. I just didn’t know myself very well. So we meet these people and they show us parts of ourselves we would rather not face but if we are successful in defending against this stuff we just plain lose. And I’ll take this story one step further.
Not only would I have shrugged had I learned the soldier killed that guy on the spot, I actually like being with a man who would and could take this action against someone of this ilk.
I also like the fact he did not kill him because he opted to follow his order but what I like most of all is he thought about it. He stood there, felt his feelings, had total awareness of his power and made a decision knowing it may well be one he would regret.
Because if this guy gets out and kills one more woman, whose fault is that? Someone’s mother is dead and who could have stopped it, hmm?
So courtesy this story and a few dozen more just like it, I have had to become aware of and ultimately own this part of my shadow, previously denied. Because what if I was the soldier’s superior officer? What if he called me up and told me there was video evidence of this guy screwing all these women, cutting their throats? Would I like him to put this guy on a plane, feed him some pizza on the way home? Probably not. Would I kill him myself? Probably not. And I’m not exactly comfortable with that either but here’s the point:
Some of the things that attract you are very likely not PC but if you deny them, where does it leave you? Hungry?
quite. (hungry)
though it helps to see that with the projective stuff i tend to be looking for a person with whom i can express some of my own things, rather than “someone who is X.” to see myself in the business.
Yeah and there is more to it. First, this guy… he is a household name. And the soldier wound up in his house, obviously risking his life many times over just to be in this position. The position he was in was once in a lifetime… it took him years and years and years of training to be able to pull something like this off and then look where he ends up. Aren’t you glad it’s not you? I am. I could make a strong argument about all kinds of things based on this story but if you don’t know stories like this exist then… then.
hm. then i have guesses. and maybe i wouldn’t be surprised. but i’ve heard enough stories i full well believe about the kinds of awful things that can happen in this world…. there are some situations where aggression is the only compassionate option. for the good of… the victimized. *sigh*
Yes. War? Domestic violence? Those statistics that repeatedly come up of 1 and 4 women having been raped? And still some people are *surprised* when someone they know committed such a crime. Why?
Someone’s doing the crime, and frankly it could be anyone.
I think there really are few people who are able to be trained to see in the ‘dark’…and even fewer who can make it through to tell the tale.
I’m glad the soldier is who he is. It makes me think about the police officers who investigate the crimes no one wants to hear about. Their job is thankless and our society needs someone capable of stepping up to the plate.
This was a wonderful start to a discussion with my SO. I am jealous of his ability to blow everything off, get away with it and play games instead. All day sometimes. I told him that is why I am desperate for him to step up in responsibility for certain things. I am so horrible at blowing things off and at playing. He now “gets” the need I have for balance with us. He’s agreed to take more responsibility so I CAN play. He always tells me to but I just can’t stop and play. The work has to be done first for me. He is a child at heart. So now we move forward with some balance.
Thank you, again and again for your insight. It made for an easy way to approach such a discussion. We’ve almost been getting to a resolution on this for some time but not getting there. This really helped!!
Having squarely come to terms with projection and my past (in no small part thanks to you, Elsa, through your blog, which I found at the perfect time in my life and through the meaty reading you recently gave me), I’m looking forward to what life has in store for me now that I’ve brought this into awareness. It’s complex and delicious.
As for this post, your courage to face those not-so-nice pieces of life head-on and assimilate them into your understanding is nothing short of inspiring.
This reminds me of a discussion I was reading elsewhere, where the first poster was fed up because she kept dating the same sorts of men (i.e. noncommittal), and then someone posts the inevitable, “It’ll happen when you’re not looking!” At which point, the single posters were all, “Um, yeah, been not looking for years now, no miracle has occurred yet because we stopped looking.” This makes me wonder exactly how someone is supposed to find someone, because trying is bad and not trying is bad!
What I have learned: I am incredibly, incredibly NEEDY in relationships. Constant, smothering, black hole of NEEEEEEEEEEEEEED that no human being can fill. Blech. Not really wanting to “own up” to that, but there it is. I come from two long lines of needy, clingy women and I don’t know how to not feel it- all I can do is try to not act upon it.
Elsa, I have watched your videos on projection and this stuff is really important to me because I’m a Libra with Pluto transiting my 7th. I have this haunting feeling that “reflecting love” figures largely for me but I can’t put my finger on an example. Do you think you could give me an example or a synonym for that phrase about what you mean? Sorry, ever since that last eclipse in my 3rd house, it’s like I can’t understand English… 😀
Good post Elsa. There are so many sickos in this world. Like the priest at the church we attended when I was growing up – he vacationed in Mexico, where he had sex with children in orphanages.
Kinda funny… I’ve been mildly to extremely pro-violence my whole life, and very in touch with my dark side… and what I’ve had to learn in recent years is how NOT to give pacifists such a hard time. How to encompass that kind of thinking and not immediately discount it as weakness.
Which is a good thing for me to learn, because otherwise, I’d spend my whole life hating and trying to kill off my conflict-avoiding side (which is a BIG part of me).
I have to say I find the story of the soldiers experience with the snuff psychopath very disturbing. Elsa- I can however, understand why you are very proud of him. He sounds like an amazing man.
I do limit my viewing of the dark side. It is too easy for me to let stories of evil or tragedy affect me emotionally and throw me off balance.
Pisces ascendant?
Last year a young man in my office comitted suicide. It was completely premeditated. He bought a gun a few weeks prior and then selected a day, rented a car and drove himself to a beach 100 miles away and shot himself in the head.
My grief for this man that I did not even know very well was intense for days and affected me deeply for several weeks.
I do not know why he could not find love.
I know why I can and that is what i have to focus on. Somehow I feel like apologizing for this. I don’t know why.
Randamandar: that’s terrible…:(
I have had a couple of friends commit suicide and something I have come to terms with is that even if the person thinks they are unloved, it’s not always about that.
I had a friend at work who I ate lunch with every day. We talked more and more, and he told me that he had left his home country and didn’t speak to his family for 9 years.
He got back in touch with them and they flew from overseas to see him. They had a wonderful time by all accounts.
My friend was plunged into deep remorse and–how could he have left his parents for so long when they loved him so much??
His parents began financially supporting him through film school, he started doing really well. Then he committed suicide. No one “could believe” that he did it when he “had everything going for him.”
Bless him, he’s gone, but my friend didn’t know what to do with the love that he was given. It was a bit alienating to be privy to all this information that no one (we were work friends; he was very private) else knew.
He really was a lovely man. Very sensitive.
thanks kashmiri. maybe you are right. it’s not always about that. so i will put my blinders on and continue walking towards the sunrise with a song in my heart full of hope and gratitude and the promise of a new day.
Him, Jennifer. Interesting. So we have to divorce ourselves from the ugly stuff? Hmm…
Randamandar, you’re positivity is very inspiring, thank you!
Jennifer, I love your honesty. Well, you know that awareness is the first step toward change.
I too feel things that have been passed down. Like my father felt insecure and very angry. He committed suicide. His mother was also very angry. I have no doubt that anger (along with countless other traits good and bad) got passed down for so countless genrations. Same with neediness on my mother’s side. I think these experiences and attitudes become part of our DNA. Until we figure out how to accept and release them, transform them and befriend them.
Interesting that an intuitive astrologer told me that my destiny is to reshape a lot of my family history, and I had said the same thing to my sister about a year before. That I felt it was up to me to end this cycle of anger in our family. This is not a fun filled destiny.
Cappy, I don’t think it’s gonna help to hide from these shadows. They don’t go away. They reside in the reptilian part of our brain (per D.Chopra)waiting to pounce. I’ve had to acknowlege mine, explore them, act them out, make friends with them, figure out what is the good side, the light side, the gift they have offer..Any of Debbie Ford’s books (the Secret of the Shadow) have very good Shadow insights and exercises.
And Jennifer, speaking of projection, it’s impossible not to project neediness. When you meet a guy and you sense that he is desperate and needy, can you tell?
Thanks to everyone who posted her. This one made me stop and think for awhile. Elsa- thanks! Even though I am not predisposed to looking at the shadowy dark side, it is good to look at it once and awhile. Better to explore it here than to be bombarded daily by televised news. I appreciate all of the insights, pure and simple, straightforward and honest.
Thank you Elsa, this post melted something very deep in me. I don’t see the soldiers potential execution of this man as violent or aggressive, I see it as justice. There is a huge difference. BTW, the most life-changing spiritual teacher I ever had was once a senior commando in the Israeli army.