My Best Solar Returns to You

 Our Moon, partially obscured by Earth's atmosphere as

photographed from the space station.

photo credit: NASA/JPL - Caltech

Today is my Solar Return...known in non-astrological
circles as my birthday.


And for my birthday, I wish us all peace.

It's a commodity I know of in the solar 'knowing'
sense as I grew up in the United States.
But having spent my first 17 years in
abusive circumstances, there's a lot about
being emotionally whole and 'feeling functional'
I didn't learn while growing up.


Here's what I've come to think about such tales
- and no, I'm certainly not the only one with 
my kind of back story.

For the young, getting away from
abuse and abusers is only half the battle.
There's a whole other crime involved in
child abuse beyond the robbing a child of their innocence.
It's about what they don't learn during
those years when they're being abused.
Like emotional security.
Like learning how to relate to other people.
Like learning to socialize.
Like learning what love really is.


For however long a child is abused, they miss out on
whatever they would have learned during those years.
And as I've learned (painfully!) as an adult,
there is no remedial parenting.


There should be, but there isn't.

That's a big, fat gap...not just in health systems,
but in the consciousness of nations,
and the conscience of our human race.


The earlier abuse starts and the longer it lasts,
the less of a 'normal' concept of being human
becomes your norm.
That's just the truth of it.

  ******************

If you read and take this thought with you,

if you allow my words to mean something as you

consider life and what this world is, has been,
has come to be and could be,

that's a gift to not just me, but you too.

After all, this is the only world any of us have.

This is the world you're going to leave to your children,

and your children's children.

*******************

I don't expect life to be perfect.
Nor at this point does its lack of perfection 
seem to me to be all that unusual.
I would have liked to have a great family, but I didn't.
So I spend my life trying to understand,
trying to figure things out, trying to share what I learn.


It's why I'm a writer and astrologer.
It's why I keep working to better myself and
every part of what I know how to do.
It's all so I can do more, give a little more and
leave this world a tiny bit better
than it was when I arrived.

 And yes, I do think that's what we're all supposed to do.


You may well have your family. I get that.

I'm glad you have what you have,
and a bit wistful about what I never had.

And yet, because I never had that 'classic' family
I think a lot about the Family of Mankind

and thank you for the faith
you express in following this blog.

Your doing that helps me feel part of the
great big human family.
And that, I really value.

Brothers in Arms

 

These mist covered mountains

Are a home now for me

But my home is the lowlands

And always will be

Some day you’ll return to

Your valleys and your farms

And you’ll no longer burn

To be brothers in arms

Through these fields of destruction

Baptisms of fire

I’ve witnessed your suffering

As the battles raged higher

And though they did hurt me so bad

In the fear and alarm

You did not desert me

My brothers in arms

There’s so many different worlds

So many different suns

And we have just one world

But we live in different ones

Now the sun’s gone to hell

And the moon’s riding high

Let me bid you farewell

Every man has to die

But it’s written in the starlight

And every line on your palm

We’re fools to make war

On our brothers in arms

  

Mark Knopfler