The Saturnine Cycle

I'm unraveling this a piece at at time, so one post might not seem to have continuity with another, but they do. There might be gaps between posts as I process, but stick with me.

First, I want to clarify something. I'm not so fragile. I used to be fragile; even six months ago. Hell, even three months ago. But not today. The things I share in this series are like tumbleweeds; the wind has shifted and they have blown out of my soul. Don't fear for me. I do have dreary days where I wish the world would not spin for awhile so I could get my bearings again. However, something snapped and when I decided I needed to be unstuck, well, the decision was more than half the process.

I happen to be a melancholy personality...saturnine, if you will. The dark side of the moon is more welcoming to me, and some days will clearly reflect that shadow. However, a grand realization I made in recent weeks is that THIS IS OK. I have always fought it, writhing and twisting and rejecting it as something broken about my humanity. It doesn't seem this way for very many people I know; either many people don't let on, or it just isn't that common. Maybe it is more common than anyone knows, but I still have had to convince myself that I'm not doomed to die because of it.

For most of my life these feelings have brought me to suicidal thoughts on a regular basis. Adolescence and teen years and twenties were struggles. However, during the first eight years after I had children I was not tormented at all. I never had the saturnine cycle those years. I don't know the reason, other than maybe my brainpower was tied up so tightly in caring for babies that there was nothing left to share with that part of my soul.

But it came back with a vengeance about four and a half years ago. My charismatic self tried with all my might to convince me it was a spiritual attack from the enemy, yeah, you know the drill. Fasting of various types, and hours of prayer and bible reading did not alleviate it. I didn't tell anyone, of course, because then it would be believed that there was something in my life that was opening me to spiritual attack. Unconfessed sin, unforgiveness...and it would be drug out of me by some listening prayer or some such magic. For.My.Own.Good. You know. I was certain it would feel as if I was squeezing blood from oranges; and whatever came out of me never served to solve the problem...only leaving me with more questions. So this was a topic that never saw the light of day.

I may have mentioned panic attacks before. That was usually brought on by the melancholy cycle, I realize now because I had so much fight in my spirit against it. Often it was like being at war with my own soul. Sometimes it would last for an hour or two...and then the sadness would settle on me like some fog, sometimes days or weeks. Then, without warning, it would lift. But those panic attacks...they aren't fun. They leave me snivelling in a corner with my arms around my knees chanting "It doesn't matter...it doesn't matter", my happy-place mantra...and sometimes also accompanied by bouts of rage and sometimes terror...

This was only a few times per year...never bothersome enough to pursue it more than by religious means. However, the threat was always in the back of my mind...breathing and waiting. The panic attacks were not the enemy...I knew without a doubt that there was a root....something dark that I could never identify, something I was shouting at internally, but a beast I could not see, could not identify.

Slowly, like the sun dawning, shadows shortening in my soul, I realized something a few weeks ago...if I choose to welcome the melancholy, embrace it, it no longer terrifies me, and there are no panic attacks. It has become a tool with which to hone myself, to dig deep into the places where there is venom needing to be drawn. Certainly, I will still cry...still walk, the halls or the street, or drive the forests. I will still grieve something intangible. But.It.Is.OK. And I have unearthed much of the root as of late...I will share more on that another time.

The grand difference in all this is the idea that my moods...once I came out of the season of struggle from all the abuses and unhealthy emotional attachments, and disentwined myself from the all-wrong God and learned to feel again...are useful to me, beneficial even. I write better when I am melancholy. I am more attached to my soul, like Wendy sewing Peter Pan's shadow back on, it feels more solid to me, even in it's increased wistfulness and fogginess. I have found this place, rather than something to be feared and fought against, is a place all my own that is a part of me for a reason.

Someone once asked me if I was born under Saturn. Hell if I know, was my response. Well, no, actually during that season I never would have cursed. At that time, astrology was just asking for trouble, in my opinion. Dare not tread where the devil lives.

A week ago, I took another look at that question in light of recent self discoveries, and decided to find out the answer. Lo and behold, wouldn't you know? Now, I don't believe astrology is any more telling of God than anything else we humans conjure, but there must be some rhyme or reason to how God hung the planets, for when doing my natal star chart for my birthdate, time, and place...it's as accurate of me as my Enneagram or MBTI. I know all the typically religious responses...don't worry for me...I'm not going to go looking for my answers in it. However, it does serve as confirmation of some things I have always known; another vocabulary to help me sort things I'd rather not face.

Things are beginning to fall into place, and Jupiter is aligned with Mars.

Just kidding.

Call me crazy, but this is my journey. Take it with me; or not.



Fallen: Part I
Amateur Therapy Hour
She's Like the Wind
Awakenings
Fallen II: Shit Makes Things Grow
The Saturnine Cycle
Light in the Windows