What will your solstice stories be?
The Solstice is when the Sun enters the zodiac sign of cancer. This year this happens
at 21.51 on Thursday 20th June. Other years it might happen on 21st June or even 22nd June. So even though the dates can very slightly each year, the actual start of Summer in the Northern hemisphere is always when the Sun leaves the part of the sky that is called Gemini and enters the zodiac sign of Cancer. So knowing about these details may not be of interest to many, but I grew up in a family where one member of my family had a birthday on 21st June. The amount of times I heard my mother insist the solstice was on the 21st June was only comparable to the amount of times she told me not to answer her back with ‘excuses’. Well she is a Libra sun sign after all, that ‘oh so balanced sign, that doesn’t like imbalance’, so they seem, to instead, demand everyone follows their way or the highway! Sorry to all Libra sun signs, I truly love you – I have learnt to, both my mother and my son have Libra sun signs! I I love them both very much! And in fact we all have some Libra energy in our birth charts, so maybe they need to teach me certain Libra traits!
So the point is that as a child I didn’t realise that perhaps the solstice could be on both days, because I didn’t know the finer details about astrology. I am now teaching astrology to my son and other children in his home education community. It is such a privilege and I have noticed how they love learning through stories, which has re-ignited my love of stories.
And with Neptune squaring (making a tricky aspect), to the Sun today , using the most positive side of Neptune’s illusion and deception qualities with myths and stories is good advice. (The more negative side would be using drugs and alcohol or other addicted behaviours to cause us to deceive ourselves).
Stories and myths have been part of my life since I can remember. As a small child myths were told to us during assemblies and stories were read to me at bedtime.
As a teenager the weekly library visits meant more books to read , (I found the books at school tedious and couldn’t connect to them). But then as an adult I discovered books to listen to while driving to work, and then became enthralled with Shakespeare plays- realising that my dad was correct when I moaned about them at school ; they are much better when seen as a play than reading them slowly at a wooden desk as part of a wooden curriculum.
I entered the psychotherapy profession in my 30s and the stories came alive as a listened to more experienced clinicians unravel stories, read accounts from imminent psychiatrists and psychotherapists. With clinical work came the personal stories of clients and unpacking them with my supervisors.
I realise how lucky I have been to be surrounded and imbued with all these stories .
I am now back in the land of stories ever more connected than before. I am still fortunate to have clients who entrust me with their stories , as well as being fortunate to be facilitating constellation workshops where more stories form as the day unfolds.
Another strand of my life is home- educating our son, who loves stories , thanks to his wonderful teacher DD, who has recounted the Aeneid, the Odyssey, many Greek tales, the Canterbury tales and many more.
In the wonderful umbrella of Hope I also have the privilege of teaching my son and other children astrology where I use stories because I’ve seen how they come alive with them.
My latest discovery this week is how a story from the world of systemic constellations and a story from the world of astrology have the same moral attached. That is keeping what is important to us in front of us and being humble to it. I will recount the 2 stories , because in the words of Dr Robert Svoboda “ like wealth, food, knowledge and children, stories must circulate”. He says once you have a story , it is your responsibility to share it and pass it on…. So with all the stories I have, I have a lot of sharing to do, so beware- enjoy the story but remember you will then have the responsibility to pass it on too!
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Story from Bert Hellinger about death:
Bert Hellinger has many case studies around death and seeing people in a constellation setting who are close to death.
In his book ‘To The Heart of the Matter’, he describes 2 separate incidents of women who were close to death. Both having degenerative illnesses. In the first case he sets up the woman with death opposite her, they look at each other, they both report feeling warm and the death representative reports having hands that are warm and tingly . Death reaches her hands out and the woman accepts and they hold hands and look at each other. After a while Hellinger invites the woman to bow down to death, she stays in this position a while and then that is enough for her.
In the second incident a similar set up happens , but the woman cannot take death in- on further inquiry the woman says her husband won’t let her go, he is more fearful of her death than she is.
A representative for the husband is placed in the constellation , then this woman can also ‘be’ with her own death.
After the constellation she reports feeling better, despite her terminal illness, and can laugh and feel lighter for the rest of the workshop.
Bert Hellinger often says to keep death in front of you so you can live well. The bowing down ritual would appear to be like praying to death. What do you think? I’d love to know your thoughts.
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This is similar to a story from Dr Robert Svoboda , where he recounts how an astrologer had become an expert in locating the position of Saturn each day. One day Saturn heard about this and Saturn decided to pay the man a visit and when he met him he asked politely if the astrologer could locate Saturn right now…… the astrologer did some calculations and then was a little confused and then looked straight ahead and exclaimed ‘you are Lord Saturn right in front of me’, and he had to bow his head to avert his eyes because of the immense brightest of the Saturn’s gaze upon him.
Dr Robert Svoboda explains that if we can live with Saturn in front of us reminding us of our reality, (Saturn rules reality, including the reality of death), “then we can live our life without needing to mourn our fate for we will become truly conscious of the pervasiveness of the realness of real.”
I love that both of my areas of study are converging with similar points, using different language.
Happy story telling . Maybe that is what makes the world go round! Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing! I would love to hear your stories, please email me at emmastarck@yahoo.co.uk