My SO has always appreciated my “wackiness” but now my newfound interest in the astrological and the occult is a bridge too far.

She says, “if it helps you do what you were already going to do, then have at it.”

In my desire to cover all of the bases, I signed up for some astrological input to my wellness journey.  I don’t judge.  Anything can help.  And in truth, I wasn’t kidding about how stress takes on a life of its own once it gets inside our bodies and makes a home.  They were not kidding with the expression “wrestling with inner demons”.  Truly not.

Astrology has been around since before the Gods of any of the religions actively practiced on earth today.  Why? Because, before patriarchy, before social pressure, before TV, internet, and consumerism, there was awe in nature, the world in nature, and humility at the vastness of creation.  Astrology was our attempt to categorize and codify this immensity, and to find patterns.  And who among us has not at times found ourselves spot-on nailed by our horoscopes or by our star sign types?

I am surely one.  Even my sceptical wife spent a day with me oohing and aah-ing over the weird coincidences we found in a book about star signs, sexuality, and pairing.  Yes, sometimes it is spot on, and other times not…which could be error on the part of the prognosticator—lord knows the field must attract all legions of quality just as any field does—or it could be error in its interpretation.

That said, one of the articles I read recently on the topic proclaimed, “we don’t meet anyone by accident.”  Given my unbelievably coincidental encounter of a few days ago [written about here], I am in a mood to agree.

The particular article I was reading talked about balance.  That we are none of us in perfect equilibrium, and that we seek out people whose harmony is in sync with our own, and who help to balance us.  Everyone must find their own true life path, but that does not mean that others are and can be a part of that path, or can have a profound influence on its direction.  But even a soul mate has his or her own path, and shared lives and shared destinies only go so far.

Soulmates are not always intimate.  Many of them are just friends.  Some are teachers, some are followers.  But there is one thing that is for sure, encounters with soul mates should not be squandered, as they are fundamental to our mental, spiritual, moral, and physical beings…Being with a soul mate is to feel life changing as it is lived.

What astrologists and spiritual people believe, is that soulmates are connected already before their first meeting, because their destinies are intertwined.  I don’t know if this is true, at least not yet, but I accept the possibility.  I believe that I encountered my old friend for a reason, and that by spending time with her again, I will discover it.

My actual therapist, also believes this, and believes that I encountered her for a reason.  She believes that Mistress too is in my life for a reason, that we were meant to connect.  And certainly the amount of change I am feeling in my life suggests that she is right.

As astrologists believe, and as my therapist believes, “soul mates have met many lifetimes and are continually bound to each other by karma and destiny.”

I do believe this.  I touched on it in a post on the Albigensian genocide [written about here].  Why?  Because in that context, there is a recurring enemy in my ancestry, over generations, and I cannot help but be struck by it.  And having known one of them in a professional context, I stayed well away, because I could see he was an axxhxxe.  But I care less about that, than about the people we love and seek to connect to.

And you might think this is complete nonsense, but I feel somehow deep in my bones, that what I am exploring with Mistress is meant to be, that I have served her before in previous lives.  And as my therapist has said to me, you have intertwined throughout history, and here you have a chance to serve her in the flesh, and you should make the most of it. And no, they don’t know each other!

I told my therapist today that she was pretty far out, and I am thinking this is really far out stuff she is telling me, but she just said, “yeah, I don’t really do this with any of my other clients, but you’re on another level spiritually, and not fully in your body, and you are a manifestation of the earth Goddess, and I am just telling you like it is.  Direct.”  Naturally, I’m delighted, and in truth, I have never had a more blunt or direct psychotherapist than this one.  And she is putting to words some things that I have struggled with for years.

She articulated something that I “knew” or that I felt, and that is that the essence of me is innocence.  My erotic self, my sensual self, my intellectual self, my human self, my friendship self, my loving self…it is all bound up in a desire to feel clean, to feel innocent, to transmit innocent wonder, and to approach and to love with innocence in my heart.  As she has noted, that is powerful, but also easy to hurt…and she is encouraging me to find ways to give that feeling while still protecting it so I can keep giving it.

My experiences with friends this past week and their protective cloaks, she felt, was not what I had interpreted—“their desire to protect someone who has avowed themselves as a submissive,” but rather their natural response to someone who expresses himself this way.  My therapist is partial to the third sex, the non-binary.  I find myself exploring this and gaining comfort and fluency with what it means to be this way, and to feel this way.

The first time that Mistress and I played together, we went for dinner after.  I was excited, proud of myself for what we had done together, so fascinated by her (and I still am), so awed, but also less fearful, and we talked over dinner about many things, but one of them was what she wanted to see.  And what she said was beautiful, but also hard for me to understand by looking ahead…as there is now starting to be some evolution and growth, I begin to see what she meant taking shape.  She wanted to see me open my wings and fly.

I’ve written early on in a few posts about having broken wings.  [This is one of them and here is another].  I felt that way in part because of my body not reflecting how I felt about myself, but also most assuredly because of my dynamic with my mother.  [I also wrote about the beautifully poignant book Broken Wings by Kahlil Gibran, one of the great poets of the 20^th century.  That book captures in painfully evocative language the anguish that one feels when things are wrong and you can’t seem to fix them].  But somehow, and it is too soon to say, or even hope, but I begin to see that maybe, just maybe, it is possible to not feel the way I’ve felt my whole life.  That maybe it is possible to come out of my chrysalis as a fully alchemized being.

It is truly apt that my spirit animal is a butterfly [written about here], but for decades I was stuck in the chrysalis stage, trapped in my own hard shell, formed as a way to protect myself from being who I am, because being that way was scary. It means feeling in ways that are just raw.  And its like being drunk and trying to hold a fire hose in a steady way, but instead everything is just spraying wildly.

Somehow, I knew that this was what lay ahead.  My very first contact with Mistress I said I didn’t know what I wanted at all, and indeed, didn’t want to impose anything, but I did want to know if it was going to be okay if I cried.  I knew that much.  And in truth, I haven’t really let go yet, and I am sure that such release lies before me…and for one such as me, those tears, ecstatic tears, are my orgasm.  Others may want to copulate.  I just want to feel my soul touch yours, to intertwine, to play, to dance like porpoises slicing through the waves, bright and joyful.

Gabor Matés book on ADD [reviewed here], talks all about ADD being born in a propensity to feel.  The wild and unruly state of my mind is another aspect of that, and one which all who spend time with me get to feel in both good and bad ways.  But I’ll take both of those, and even though I have hidden my emotions for so long because I couldn’t handle what would happen when they came out, Mistress is a dab hand at opening the spigots just enough.  And in truth, thinking about her, thinking especially about my children, thinking about my SO, and sometimes, egads, about my family, and certainly often about my friends, I tap into this feeling, and find my way to saying something that others don’t say, won’t say, and which is a pure expression of love.  And I can see them feel it.

But up until now, I used that same emotional intelligence to keep people at bay.  In the book the Five Personality Patterns, [reviewed here], the author outlines how we have a primary and secondary pattern that help us to cope with stress.  My secondary pattern is the aggressive profile.  By prickling people you can keep them on the back foot, and keep them away, so that they never get close enough to hurt you.

I understand that better now, and hope I can control it.

Coming back to astrology and horoscopes and astrology.  When a soul comes into harmony with itself, it is better able to connect to others, who are also on the same harmonic frequency, and together they are able to create change, not just in themselves, but in the world around them.  I don’t really “know” in a rational sense at all what I am talking about.  It is kind of like feeling myself in the dark.  Trying to find my way.

Any one person may have many soulmates, and these people can come into and out of our lives at different times.  We must just be open to their significance and the opportunity to gain clarity and enlightenment through conscious interaction with them.

According to astrological teachings, there are two types of cosmic connections that can exist between soulmates: karmic and cosmic.  A karmic soulmate is someone who comes to teach you an unfinished lesson and balance your karma.  These types of relationships may have turbulence and instability, but they drive major change for any who experience it.

The cosmic soulmate is one with whom the connection is instant.  It may feel as if you have been connected before, or that you already know each other, conversation will flow, things will feel natural.  Although you may have similar interests or life paths, you will find each other unexpectedly, and if you are tuned into these things, you will most likely find you have a strong psychic connection.  Being near you soulmate gives you a sense of completeness and calm.

The Karmic soulmate has come into our lives to give us strength and to help us be introspective.  This is not always pleasant, as dealing with emotional wounds can be hard.  It is up to us to decide what to do with the things we uncover because the Karmic soulmate has forced us to open our eyes and look.

The Cosmic soulmate balances the Karmic by helping us to heal, by giving us warm, unconditional love.  These people heal, but also help us to become our true selves.  And yes, they “assist us with the defeat of our personal demons…and assist in our personal and spiritual ascension.”

The astrological narrative on finding a soulmate suggests that wearing colours like pink and purple and green are good ways to do it, because they resonate on a higher frequency, and aid in aligning your spirit.  How funny that the three are my favourite colours.

Anyway, according to my horoscope, now received daily, I am entering a period of profound spiritual juju, and these next months are going to be big for me on all fronts.  I can already feel that taking place.  Emotional rebirth and growth is hard.  And just a few weeks ago I freaked and cried painful tears, scared, not sure of what lay ahead.  I was subdued, and when I saw Mistress during that time, I was open to her in a way that I had never been before because I was emotionally raw, and she responded to that.

I talked to my therapist about it, and the conclusion was that I have now tasted too much of what can be and will no longer be willing to turn back.  I think she’s right.  And I’m ready to go for it.

What’s your journey, and who is there helping?  We can’t do it alone, that much I know, no matter who you are.