Wound or Blessing?

In French, the verb “to wound” is “blesser,” pronounced “bless-a,” emphasis on the last syllable.  How is it that wounds are blessings? Where do blessings come from? Seemingly out of the blue. Life suddenly presents us with an event that alters our path and triggers our evolution. Sometimes it feels like opportunity and good fortune. Other times it hurts. These wounds are karmic. They represent the challenges to wholeness and wellbeing that we all face. We’re each healing a part of the whole fabric of human consciousness.

Over the past month, old family wounds resurfaced and I’ve been suffering their pain and questioning their purpose. This is exactly what I should have expected out of a Cancer cycle. The last New Moon was on the Summer Solstice, a ring of fire eclipse, on the cusp of Cancer. We think of eclipses as revealing shadow, both personal and collective. Cancer energy is deeply tied to our roots, home and family. It’s the womb of our childhood. So with three eclipses on the Cancer/Capricorn axis, this past month has triggered our childhood wounds. This is a blessing because it  connects us to our roots and gives us an opportunity to examine our past.

Did we get the nurturing we needed? Were we honored and respected and loved? Did we feel supported and cherished? Families are the laboratories in which our emotional climate is forged, our beliefs and attitudes formulated, our perception of the world conceived. These are the shadows of our conditioning and during those years each and every one of us became aware of the wound/blessing that we would carry throughout our lives.

Some wounds will stay with us forever. That doesn’t mean that we can’t heal them, but we will never be rid of them. They linger in our psyches, in our subconscious. They shadow our lives and remind us of our vulnerability. They teach us humility. As long as they remain unconscious, however, they will have power over us and we will not be free agents. They make us vulnerable to our emotional triggers. They leave us prey to reactive behavior.

It’s important to uncover our root wound. For me, it was discovering at age 3 that I was not valued as much as my brother, that boys are more precious than girls. I got to watch this patriarchal domination at work in my life, throwing up barricades, crushing me with contempt, limiting my possibilities. For longer than I’d like to admit, this subconscious wound controlled my life. I was always trying to prove my worth, I was supersensitive to sexist comments, I simmered with resentment toward men and competed with them, but it was a losing game played in the wrong ball park.

Whether from exhaustion, years of psychotherapy and growing self-awareness or just plain time and old age, I finally reached self-acceptance. I’m not here to prove my equality. I’m here to be a woman and channel the qualities of the feminine energy. This is a privilege, not a wound. It is a blessing to be what the world needs now.

The Heavens as usual, are providing the perfect context at this point in our process. Mercury was retrograde in Cancer for the last three weeks helping us reflect on our past, our family ties, our childhood conditioning. It turned direct on Sunday, July 12^th and will retrace its path through Cancer, giving us another look at emotional ground we have covered twice since mid-June.

Meanwhile Mars has caught up to Chiron in Aries, energizing our karmic wounds. Chiron is stationary at the moment, having just turned retrograde. Chiron will also retrace its steps leading us into deeper healing. Mars may bring up old wounds and trigger long-held anger and resentments, but this energy will also supply the courage needed to look our pain in the eye and open up to Chiron’s healing power. Watch your emotions and your reactions. Where are they coming from? What are the roots? Question the conclusions you drew about yourself and the world, the conditioned beliefs, the self-image you adopted, the defenses you developed. Is there another way to look at your wounding? What is its blessing?

There is a lot of healing that can happen through remembering, crying, feeling deeply and sobbing. It does release a backlog of jammed emotion and with the release of energy can come new perception, insight and another degree of freedom and autonomy. However, healing is about learning how to live with the wound – like Chiron, who channeled his pain into wisdom and compassion.

How do we befriend our wound and be grateful for the wealth and depth of wisdom it has provided? I think this is at the core of self-acceptance. Not just accepting one’s flaws, weaknesses and imperfections, but being grateful for the awakening they instigate. I know now that my heart will always ache for the boy who jilted me, that I will always be a woman in a man’s world, that I will always regret angry words and moments in which I wounded others. I live my life conscious of these wounds and let them strengthen my character. When old wounds arise, they remind me to be kinder, more understanding and compassionate. They link me with everyone else who is carrying a wound. They connect me with my humanity.

Next Monday, July 20^th, is a second New Moon in Cancer. We get another month to work with these energies, but as the Sun moves into Leo, we can tap into our power, our courage, our instinct to lighten up and play. We can begin to contemplate leadership and what that might mean for us. More to come . . .