Deep Memory Process
The
body holds trauma from one lifetime to the next, and carries this trauma
through our thoughts and emotions. For instance, fear, anger, and despair can
be lodged in the throat, blocking this chakra. Phrases like "I never
should have said it" and "They won't listen" may be repeated at the moment of
death and then prevent one from speaking one's truth in this lifetime.
The
shoulders, for example, hold guilt and the feeling of being burdened. Guilt and
the overwhelming feeling of responsibility appear in thoughts/statements we
repeat throughout our lives such as "I can never do enough," or "It's all up to
me." So the physical shoulder pain is connected to the emotion of guilt and the
thought of not doing enough, and as we enter through any one of these places, a
particular story and character will emerge.
Wilhelm
Reich, the pioneer in somatic psychology, realized that we can locate the
unconscious in the body. The goal in Deep Memory work, like aspects of
shamanism, is to retrieve the lost and fragmented parts of the soul. The
"unfinished business" from various lifetimes continues to haunt us in this
incarnation, for we embody all of our soul's history.
We
must allow the psyche to dramatize these unresolved, inner characters to
uncover how the trauma we are carrying today first formed. This ‘psychodrama'
cathartically engages the past life story, the wounds, the dying thoughts, and
then the necessary healing and resolution work in the bardos, the interlife realms
of the spirit world.
Evolutionary
Astrology is a map that reveals the psyche and its conscious and unconscious
scripts, which we are then able to process through experiential therapy in this
form of shamanic regression healing, Deep Memory Process.
Chiron: The Emergence of the Wounded
Healer
In
1977, the year of the Serpent and our favorite shamanic myth, Star Wars, a
heavenly body was discovered slithering its way in an obscure orbital path
between the last planet visible to the naked eye, Saturn, and Uranus–the first
planet discovered with our visual appendage, the telescope.
Because
of its obscure orbit and location, the body was named after the wise Greek
centaur. Chiron's physical location and orbit leads us from the known to the
unknown, from the seen to the unseen. He is the trance-dancing shamanic
harbinger of mystery. And Chiron is the Wounded Healer.
Three Wounds
Chiron
is wounded in three primary ways, which each of us will feel woven within our
own individual mythos. First, Chiron is a centaur. He is born out of an illicit
affair between Saturn/Chronos and Philyra, a sea-nymph. The two of them turn
into horses in order to not be caught, and they mate in this way, conceiving
Chiron. He is a bastard child, rejected by his parents for being too ugly; thus,
he becomes orphaned, and represents the rejected, exiled parts of ourselves.
Chiron
is affiliated with a tribe of creatures who symbolize wild, instinctual powers.
The Centaurs were always described as crazy and raucous beings, unconcerned
with cultured, rational ways of behaving. (We can reflect here upon the
shadow expressions of the unconscious Uranus–a full throttle surge for freedom
with often chaotic and traumatizing results.) But Chiron separates himself from
this behavior. He is civilized and wise and fulfills a duty to serve humanity.
Therefore,
Chiron's second wound involves an identity crisis: he is neither totally wild,
nor totally civilized. He is a demi-god and a hybrid being and so reflects that
struggle within us towards integration of our human, animal, and divine
natures. Like shamans across cultures, Chiron must negotiate the worlds. He
spends much of his time alone in his cave, communing with Spirit.
Importantly,
his solitude allows him to develop his creative and healing gifts, which
include the studies of astrology, astronomy, herbology, and weaponry. When he
interacts with others, he is usually teaching or mentoring.
The Shamanic Artist: The Wounded Healer
With
his third wound, Chiron is poisoned accidentally by an arrow from his own
student, the hero Hercules. As an immortal, he cannot die so he suffers
continuously. The only way Chiron can free himself from the chronic wound is to
sacrifice his immortality, which he does in exchange for the life of
Prometheus, the Titan chained to a rock for stealing fire from the gods and
gifting it to humanity.
If
Chiron allows his own death, humanity will be liberated, and his suffering will
end. Because of his compassion, Chiron sacrifices himself. Because he elevated
his suffering through the act of service, Chiron became one–some say two–of
the constellations above–Sagittarius or Centaurus.
This
is an important message for the artists and healers of today. For our
arts have become modalities to instruct and heal. And our healing work
continues to inspire the next level of creativity. By death, we can ascend to
even greater heights, becoming a constellation as Chiron did, shining and
guiding others.
The
Chiron-Neptune conjunction has helped each one of us activate our inner mentor,
invoking the teacher and creative within, but only to the extent that we allow
our willing transformations. For, like a zen master, Chiron continuously
modifies and tweaks our consciousness, demonstrates what is lacking, the skills
undeveloped, the lessons not integrated, the unhealthy practices.
Chiron
whispers at us from within, that voice that says, "If I don't do my yoga today,
then I'm going to be unbalanced for the rest of my day," or "I need to move
this negative emotion through some breathwork or dance."
When
an experience repeats in our lives, and especially when we suffer due to this
experience, we naturally apply the magnifying glass to discover the causes of
our suffering condition. When ploughing the depths for the causes of our
suffering, we must gallop, like the centaurs, straight into the heart of the
Dark Forest.
We
weave through our labyrinth arriving back in the traumas of childhood or other lifetimes,
or in unresolved relationships, and notice there a pattern of the sacred wound,
etched into our souls.
With
Chiron, we wonder, "Am I ever actually "healed" or am I required to persist in
healing?
Healing
is an active verb, a constant process, unfolding, hopefully from ever wider
circles of holistic awareness and integral wisdom, wherein the wound is
experienced with less suffering and perceived as a necessary teacher.
We
know that we are Avatar, we are the chose ones. But often, knowing our power as
creators and healers, we are overwhelmed with our multidimensional awareness,
our abundance of gifts to share, our desire to expand our auras into their
infinite potential. This can challenge us to make decisions about where to
apply our creative energy and how to develop our healing gifts. We wish
to be of the highest service, but HOW?
The
HOW is of the linear Mind, and the ego can't help but get involved, muddying up
the trust, faith, and surrender of our intuition. And intuition does seem to
flow most when we do that which sustains the vibration of bliss.
Ananda,
or bliss, is a state experienced NOW, when Consciousness is aligned with the
Truth of the present moment, not a projected future perfect state. The future
always arrives with its own set of challenges.
Fellow
astrologer, Rob Brezny, reminds us to "Dream of all the masterpieces you'd be
thrilled to create, but work on just one at a time." This quote reminds us that
we must be patient with our pathways of transformation.
Thus,
as the Wounded Healer, the Shaman-Artist, by magnifying our apparent
deficiency, we discover the very modalitiy, artform, or skill that will be our
greatest service towards others.
This
is by nature an alchemical process, whereby we shapeshift our pain and
separation into its glorious gift to the world. This means we smile through the
tears. In Sanskrit, this state of supreme awareness available NOW is called
Sat-Cit-Ananda–Truth-Consciousness-Bliss.
This
article originally appeared on SoulAlchemyAstrology.com
Image by arenamontanus, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
