The Full Pink Moon, also known as the Paschal Full moon, is our first full moon of the Zodiacal New Year. Fun fact: Easter is traditionally celebrated on the Sunday after the first full moon of spring, which is why the date changes from year to year. Funny how witches were burned at the stake for living according to the phases of the moon, but one of Christianity’s most faithfully observant holy-days alters according to those same lunar positions. It appears to be not about witchcraft at all, but merely another way in which men in power use their positions in order to control a more vulnerable population. Things haven’t really changed all that much. We just put a new sparkly bow on the same issue, hoping people wouldn’t realize that the goal of the game hasn’t actually changed at all.
The name doesn’t actually have anything to do with the color of the moon, although it does tend to be the most beautiful shades of pink, remarkably lit in the darkened sky. I wouldn’t know, mainly due to the fact that there is way too much white light where I live. It clouds the view, pun intended. The pink coloring corresponds with the moss phlox, a wildflower that is native to the eastern portion of North America. These flowers signal the time for clearing out our garden beds, both physically and metaphorically speaking. We can’t plant the new seeds in our lives, if we are still struggling with last year’s weeds. Dig them out by the roots. We are ultimately responsible for clearing out our own terrain.
Unlearning Lessons
Every time we have a full moon, there is a corresponding new moon that started us out on our journey. They typically occur six months apart from each other, taking us back to October 6, 2021. This particular New Moon in Libra was asking us to examine what obstacles in the life were holding us back from realizing our goals. And by we, I mean me. Libra is my sun sign according to Western Astrology, making this new moon my own personal new year.
On that same day Pluto went direct, initializing massive change on the home front. Pluto is the planet that represents our shadow side, the parts of us that we try to pretend aren’t there. We try to hide certain aspects of ourselves for various reasons: to fit in, tp be accepted, because it’s safer that way. We call them skeletons, but I think they are more like ghosts. We walk around with sheets over our heads, peering out from these tiny circular holes. We cover them over as children, only to exorcise them at a later date. They eat away at our souls, like carrions hovering over a dead opossum in the road. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we encourage our children to do this to themselves? I know my own parents thought they were protecting me, but what they were actually doing was rejecting me.
My parents taught me everything I needed to know in order to conform to society’s ever-changing standards. They taught me to scream “fire,” instead of “help” when being attacked. They taught me that being polite was more important than safety or consent. They taught me to suck it up, to keep calm and carry on. They taught me how to lie and deflect to avoid dealing with uncomfortable emotions. They taught me a lot of lessons that I am now having to unlearn. Thanks generational trauma.
Emotional Damage
It’s a harsh truth to realize that your parents may never be proud of you the way they are of your sibling. It becomes an even more difficult revelation when you become cognizant of the fact that you are not, in fact, here for them. You are here because of them, and those are two very different concepts. Yes, it has taken me this long to figure all of this out. I am a recovering co-dependent, people-pleaser, another gift I can thank my parents for.
When you grow up in a family who has little to no emotional intelligence, everything tends to become enmeshed. I became a hypervigilant child, the one responsible for monitoring and maintaining my mother’s emotional state. I was constantly being told not to bother her with my problems, because she has too much on her plate. But I thought I was the child? Aren’t I the one who is supposed to be taken care of, not me taking care of the adult’s emotional stability? That’s called parentification in psychological terms. In social settings I was applauded for being so grown up.
As a parentified child I can assure you that this took a huge emotional toll on me. My parents couldn’t love me the way I needed to be loved. More often than not I was told that I was being ridiculous (still a very triggering word for me) or that I was too sensitive. Don’t take things so personally, they said. The problem with these statements are that they don’t give a cadence to the fact that my needs were not being met, and my emotionally development was thwarted by the fact that all of our emotions were entangled. Nobody, I think, really understood how to separate all of that, hence the need for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy in my adult life. Unfortunately I feel as though I am still doing most of the emotional labor for them, only this time I am trying to get myself out of it. Oh the webs we weave trying to survive in this world!
The Greater Good
The healing began when I no longer wanted to reduce myself or my creative abilities in order to placate to the desires of everyone else. As a woman we are so often told to sacrifice ourselves, to hold up everyone around us while we slowly drown to death. Need I point anyone to the numerous anti-abortion legislation currently happening in our country. Talk about the ultimate sacrificial lamb, or more accurately the lamb to slaughter. Having a child would absolutely devastate me, and that is the truth. I have never wanted something less. I lost my childhood due to the fact that I had to help care for an ailing father. I will be damned to let go of this newfound freedom because of society’s expectations of me. I am probably already damned in their eyes anyway. Let’s just let that be a thing.
You’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t.
Bart Simpson
I’m going to be judged no matter what I do. Someone is going to have a problem with me no matter which side of the aisle they find themselves on. I do it. I absolutely judge people. I was taught by the greatest. I should point out that I am also actively trying to unlearn that godawful behavior, because that’s all it is at this point, a habit. Neural pathways are hard to rewire, but our brains are so malleable. It is possible. The key is to learn how to trust ourselves, even as we leap into the void. Everything is an unknown, and learning how to discern between an anxious belly and a gut instinct is no easy feat. I’ve fucked that one up royally, I can’t even count how many times. And at this stage in my life I have no doubt that I will continue to fuck shit up. Hopefully this time I will come out better for it, and not just for the greater good.
Mad love, Jenna
