posted May 03, 2013 08:43 PM            

Do you ever find it deeply unnerving to meet, say, a cousin you never met before and see yourself in them...yet they are strangers to you?

This happens to me quite a bit because I come from a huge family. I have about 30 first cousins on my father's side and every few years I meet a new one.

What really got me thinking about this was, I was looking at my 18 year-old niece's website the other day and got a little mournful over the fact that we don't really know each other. She grew up several states away, and I've only been in the same room with her for about ten hours of our lives. We don't communicate except on those few times we met....then we get along quite well.

Weird thing is, from the time she was a baby I have felt extremely attached to her. I was sad at college because I wasn't near my niece. As she was growing up, I would hand draw her birthday cards and in the back of my mind, I thought, "Maybe she'll be an artist someday."

Coincidentally she is an outstanding artist now, to the point where I am completely in awe of her pictures (which she posts online.)

We have the same nodal axis, 1 degree orb. We are both Gemini Mars (which explains the manual dexterity a bit.) My Saturn is almost exactly conjunct her Venus, and my son shares her birthday (and some of her features.)

It's just downright odd that this person is a stranger to me. But it's just par for the course with my entire, huge family that people don't really get to know each other. It's almost like an unspoken rule that you keep people at arm's length.

If I sat down and thought about it, this might strike me as tragic, but I'm so used to it, it's like it doesn't matter. Only when I'm around family and feeling like I've suddenly been thrown into a hall of mirrors do I freak out.

Anyone else have families like this?

Or did you ever bump into a lookalike cousin by accident, or anything like that?

posted May 03, 2013 09:27 PM            

I also come from a massive family from both sides.
My dad has 9 sisters and a 2 half brothers and my mom has 5 siblings!
So maybe like over 30 cousins/nephews or nieces.

Most of my family conforms to either strict cultural or religious ideals.
My parents are the most progressive individuals in their families.
Most people in my family highly educated they're just like sheep thou..
I've never liked being around them, too boring always do is pray and eat.
I'm serious.. Reunions are so boring I avoid going most of time.

They excommunicated my sister basically LOL she was wild...
Well even my dad stopped talking to her but yeah anyways
I'm also controversial character because I'm pretty much a faggot and I've always been really open about it.

I sorta hung out with a niece on thanksgivings a few years ago, yeah she's older than me btw...
My dad is the youngest of 11 siblings LOL

She was SOOO amazing and not afraid of me hehe.
She's an Aqua.
Aquas and gems are like peas in a pod.
My bff is an Aqua too.

posted May 03, 2013 11:01 PM            

My Dad's side of the family doesn't accept me (though they tolerated me until the divorce was final), and never accepted Mom even when she married into their family. I have mixed with cousins from that family when I went to school in that town, and I recall one boy who was fascinated with me in spite of himself because he could see my dad (his uncle) in me, though in general they didn't want to be associated with me, which was convenient as I was living with Granny (on Mom's side) rather than Mamaw (Dad's side), and the 2 families have long looked down on each other (some believe Mom & Dad married in part just to spite their respective families).

posted May 04, 2013 06:35 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Kerosene:
I completely understand you!

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Thank you! Though maybe I shouldn't have said my family was huge...after reading about yours and 12muddy's, mine seems small!

Sorry to hear your family is mostly non-progressive. I would have a hard time with that, too, and would probably find myself cutting ties with them.

posted May 04, 2013 07:01 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by PixieJane:

My Dad's side of the family doesn't accept me (though they tolerated me until the divorce was final), and never accepted Mom even when she married into their family. I have mixed with cousins from that family when I went to school in that town, and I recall one boy who was fascinated with me in spite of himself because he could see my dad (his uncle) in me, though in general they didn't want to be associated with me, which was convenient as I was living with Granny (on Mom's side) rather than Mamaw (Dad's side), and the 2 families have long looked down on each other (some believe Mom & Dad married in part just to spite their respective families).

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That's so sad!

I experienced some of that, too, because my father's family rejected my mother. So my siblings and I were sort of like outcasts at family functions growing up. Even my paternal grandmother froze us out.

Now that many of the people who started the argument are dead, my siblings and I are slowly getting on better terms with our cousins.

quote:

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Originally posted by PixieJane:
And their spirit is alive in me (I just cut out a wall of text explaining that, which is complicated).

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Can I beg you to re-post?

That's something I'm also trying to pinpoint. What is it about my cousins that seems so similar to myself?

There are a few things I can think of. One of them is, it seems we all have a kind of piercing stare. If someone is talking, we listen and stare at them very calmly and intently. (I think this comes from my paternal grandmother just because I have pictures of her looking at the camera like that.)

So if I'm meeting a cousin, and their eyes are locked right into mine, I get emotionally affected because it's like some stranger found the "secret handshake" of my family and is suddenly one of us.

That sounds crazy I know. You'd have to meet my family to see what I'm talking about.

quote:

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Originally posted by PixieJane:
I'm sometimes morbidly fascinated with them as they are me when we meet because we recognize that kinship, it's undeniable, and we realize we had the potential to be a lot more like each other had things just gone a little different in our lives...

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That about sums it up for me, too. Though I think with my cousins there is a desire to keep the distance because it's assumed that closeness would become too close and start hogging up time in our personal lives.

I live ten minutes away from one of my first cousins. She's older than me. I unknowingly decided to go to the same college as her and major in the same thing. At family events we gossip about the professors we had in common and really laugh our heads off because we have the same sense of humor.

posted May 04, 2013 07:28 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by 12muddy:
My family is quite big. My mother has 10 siblings and my father has 7. As far as I know, I’m one of the only two earth suns, most of my relatives are water suns, some are fire suns and some are air suns.

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HUGE family you have!

And me, too: in my immediate family (parents, siblings, in-laws, nieces and nephews) I was the only earth sign for a long time until I had my Taurus son three years ago (who is born right on the Taurus-Gemini cusp.)

quote:

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Originally posted by 12muddy:
Most of my cousins are wary of me, because their parents use me as a cautionary tale, the black sheep in the family.

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*Hug* You seem like a really great person, very intelligent and friendly... that is outrageous that they can ignore that. Maybe they are jealous because you are better looking than them? (Remember, I saw your picture!)

quote:

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Originally posted by 12muddy:
She has plenty of air and I have plenty of earth, both are soaked in the 12th house. Her moon is in leo, my leo Jupiter is in 7th house.

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I love how you put it: "soaked" in the 12H.

quote:

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Originally posted by 12muddy:
As I grew up I forgot what it felt like to be a part of a family (or maybe I just didn't have a strong sense of "family" ?) and I didn’t consider it important anymore.

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I can relate to that exactly.

Even with my siblings, I see them so rarely that it's strange for me to reunite with them in person. Last time I was with all four of my brothers, at my brother's wedding about two years ago, we were standing together in a group talking. Several of the guests on the bride's side kept coming up to me and exclaiming things like, "Wow, you have four brothers and they're all so tall!"

My peculiar reaction: "I know, isn't that weird?! I have four tall brothers! I don't see them very often and forget."

quote:

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Originally posted by 12muddy:
I love my freedom, and in my Chinese/Oriental birth chart it is said that I’m destined to roam. But she reminded me of what I lost. She planted in my mind the first seeds that would eventually grow into a sense of longing, which would in turn help to cure my commitment problems hehe.

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I know what you mean...I love my freedom as well and with Uranus in the 4H, I was probably bound to end up living apart from where I grew up.

But I lost my roots. I have Pluto in the 3rd house, and I have to say, it's probably a much bigger issue than I usually pay attention to.

posted May 04, 2013 06:28 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Faith:
Can I beg you to re-post?

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Ok, you asked. For convenience I'll make an effort to put this into chapters.

ANCESTORS

My Swedish ancestors (though I only know of those who settled in town as they're in the family lore AND a county library, which was the size of a bedroom, had a detailed book on the local history that listed some of them) were rugged & independent, they didn't take well to authority and often got in trouble with the law (I suspect they probably had to flee Sweden for that reason, or may have even been kicked out). One pair of brothers back around the turn of the century even robbed banks on horseback (wouldn't their Viking ancestors be proud), but they were seen as "sewing their wild oats" while the older people settled on a farm (with suspicious additions of livestock that got them started, very possible rustled). They even aided & abetted Bonnie & Clyde once (hiding their car in their barn and giving them room & board until the local heat died down).

They had a very bad reputation among the more conservative Christian folk of Texas (including by ancestors on my Dad's side that included preachers, businessmen, and the like, and I later learned that Mamaw was descended from Irish nobility, the Butlers of Kilkenny if you're curious, and I believe that might help explain their snobbishness and desire to put themselves above someone, and probably also felt "how the mighty had fallen" in how they were forced out of Ireland & Scotland, and back at the turn of the century the Scotch-Irish stuck together as my Swedish ancestors also mostly stuck together).

This had the result of getting my Swedish side to stick together, and to attack one was to attack all (especially back then), which was necessary to remain unmolested (and I found a lot of benefit from it myself), so even though my family is very independent & rugged they circled the wagons in defense of each other (the classic "we better hang together or we'll hang apart"), and that also encouraged them to work the farm cooperatively, especially after they started to clean up their image after the Depression.

GRANNY

Nevertheless, old habits die hard (and as some Christians like to say generations remain cursed for 3-4 generations, Granny being the first generation after). Having talked to me Granny was shocked by how authoritarian & paranoid schools in the city had become in my day given that my high school wanted to have me committed for a story of teachers getting shot when she said all the kids of her generation sang songs about killing all the teachers and burning down the school (and no one thought anything of it), and even in the 90s high schoolers were allowed to keep guns in their trucks in the school parking lot (her town), and when she was a kid in the 50s kids played games like throwing knives at each other's feet (mumblety peg, including the "chicken" version) during lunch & recess among other games that wouldn't be approved in modern schools.

Boys learned to shoot real guns before puberty (necessary at the very least for varmint control, venomous snakes, feral hogs & dogs, etc), and at the time Granny went to school the slingshot became popular, and kids bragged they could kill rats and other varmints with it (anyone can exterminate with a .22, but to really prove one's mettle, do it with a slingshot!). She ended up getting one and even after she beaned her principal with a shot from it she was allowed to bring it to school again ('course she got paddled for having shot the principal followed by a whipping at home and was too scared to do it again, until...) She met some Beatniks, I think they were, on their way to California (they were in town getting room & board from relatives of one) when some flirted with her and talked her into leaving with them, and she said she wanted to "do one thing." And so she had them drop her off at school (which she was skipping) during lunch (which was taken outside) she beaned the principal again running into their car shouting, "Drive! Drive!" (It's obvious that even as a grandmother she loves that memory. )

Granny did well on her own (and her pix of the time give me a good idea what I'd have looked like back then with a freckled smile much like my own) and mixing with "nature's children" as well as a hippie commune for awhile (she couldn't stand how the men had all the power and women all the responsibility, however, and they found her anti-authoritarian attitude directed at them until she finally left which is a depressing story).

She returned to Texas a single mother in her 20s (and all kids by a different father, none properly married to her) which did not go over well in the Bible Belt. Nevertheless, as much as my family disapproved, they wouldn't let anyone else threaten her, though there was a lot of drama all the same (though the family won't let anyone else give members hell, they'll give each other hell, plus...well, long story).

MOM (and her sibs)

The churches actually had sermons against Granny, even though she considered herself a Christian (but not a fundamentalist), and plenty of hypocrites who condemned her also came by which caused my Mom to reject Christians as hypocritical fakes with Scorpio disdain. (Mom shared how once 2 men showed up after church at the same time and started arguing over who got to have their chance which somehow got into an argument over who's church was more righteous until Mom, a young Scorpio teen, yelled out her window, "Are you actually arguing which one of you is right enough with God to [F-word] my mom behind your wife's back?" Startled, they didn't know she'd been listening in, they both fled. ) I suspect Mom may have been mad at God for letting certain things happen, she had a rough childhood, and some who abused her also loved to thump the Bible (so did Dad, and they both tried to pass on their contempt of Christianity into me, maybe would've save Granny was a positive role model to me, OTOH, I could see she was also the exception to the rule). Mom was especially wild as a teen, drinking & smoking and wearing clothes that got her sent home from school, and she resisted authority and group-thinking as many in my family had once did, and though the family was trying for more respectability and came down on her hard they came down even harder of any in the town who menaced or hurt her.

Again, family hung together so that they didn't hang apart, but at the same time their independent natures made the growing farm unable to organize so that it never became anything like a factory farm (for which I'm thankful, I think the factory model is evil). It gets people by (especially with foraging, fishing, and hunting thrown in) but it doesn't do as well as other farms. And disapproving of Granny and Mom they could still grudgingly respect their independent spirits and stuck by them. As my cousin once said to me, "No one torments you but me," and that sums up the family spirit pretty well. We often gave each other hell, but could get vicious on any outsiders that tried to give any of us hell.

Granny's other children settled in more, joining the biggest Baptist church (the one where I'd alienate the preacher when I was 13 as I demonstrated my family's spunk against self-righteous jerks) either to help in business (people preferred to do biz with members of their own denomination) or because their husbands were, and perhaps wished to show that they didn't deserve the reputation that still lingers around the family.

posted May 04, 2013 06:55 PM            

And as I got older that was encouraged (in both good & bad ways) to the point that I learned to forage, fish, and the like as well, even made my own polk salad that I got from the woods when I was 13 without adult supervision (Granny said people used to have children for the free labor, and at least in our family kids ate last, which sometimes meant they went hungry, and thus they learned to fend for themselves much as I had to do with the 'rents, and Zack taught me how to do that as well even though it had become less necessary). And that spirit no doubt is part of why I could defy gender roles (even with Granny always trying to girl me up, though she DID get me that skateboard for my 14th birthday I'd been wanting for years...), pop an attitude with the preacher, laugh at those who said I was a Satanist (got some flak from my family for egging the others on and making it worse, but they still defended me), and be adventurous.

My older cousin Zack (who also lived with Granny, though his parent's house was in sight of Granny's, and his dad being the uncle I don't get along with & his mom the aunt who threw me into a lake) took me harvesting shrooms from cow patties with friends (and then made tea out of it, though I did nibble on one out of curiosity, and I did shrooms with the rest of them), snuck me into see Beavis & Butt-head Do America (and there, one county over but the closest cinema, they DO try to enforce the R rating, at least back then), and took me to a keg party where we paid (got a stamp, too) which got raided by deputies but was considered the highlight of the party (it was in a barn near some woods and lookouts caught the deputy cars driving up in the pasture so we had plenty of time to flee, and Zack brought a flashlight from experience so we could find our way home through the woods, telling me that when the music and hollering got too loud the deputies tended to show up), he taught me to "wind dry" my hair by "headbanging" to Pantera's Cowboys From Hell (he loves outlaw country but in his teen years he did like some metal bands, too, especially Pantera & AC/DC). (And even in 2011 a cousin gave me some rice krispie squares made with ganja butter that I then shared with Mom to enjoy her AC.)

That kept up when I had to move back with Mom, I did ok as a runaway on the streets (being 15 at the time, as Granny was when she ran away), a survivor who had a vision of Freya (so appropriate for someone of Scandinavian blood, especially an independent female) who told me I had to stay strong, stood up to adults, and later, at 16, I hitchhiked to California much the way Granny did when she was 15 (and I also smoked a lot of weed with Deadheads into Janis Joplin for about half the journey, how weird is that?).

I returned to visit family shortly before I turned 22, and much as they accepted Granny the prodigal back they did me (probably just glad I wasn't a single mom as Granny had been upon her return) though I gave them a start bringing (actually she was my ride) a tattooed blasian back with an attitude growing up in South Los Angeles (where she got hatred from both the black community and her Korean step-family), and she really stood out among my blond kin. They took us to my favorite restaurant (where Zack sucked out crawdad brains to gross her out just as he used to do to me) as we talked when it got quiet, and then Zack shouted in a "I dare you to bring it" way, "What!?" I noticed then that he and several others were glaring back at some rednecks who didn't like my big city friend sitting with us blond rednecks (we were a county over so my family wasn't known as well) and the ones glaring at us turned away. But that was it, whatever they may have thought of her, she was with me, and when anyone made any kind of threat toward me they automatically banded together and let it be known that if they messed with me, they messed with all of them.

They didn't understand a lot about Wicca, Discordianism, transhumanism (though this topic got cousins to put on a video of Jason X, a horror movie that uses transhumanist concepts, which made me laugh) and other things we mentioned, but they didn't care. They respect independence (if only grudgingly at times).

And I stand by them. I never mention the town because I don't want anyone to do a netsearch and find it as they'd easily figure out who my family is and that could create all kinds of trouble for them. When Granny had her pulmonary embolism I sold stuff to take a bus back (as I couldn't get a ride) and took care of her chores, cats, etc, and then at home until she got her strength back. I bickered with a lot of relatives but I still had their backs, and I wouldn't have hesitate to pick up any of Granny's (or Zack's) guns in defense of the others (even the ones I can't stand) if need be, and they'd do it for me, even the ones who can't stand me. In a hostile world trying to stamp out our individuality and rob us of our independence there's just no other way to be.

And that independent spirit (which manifests as downright outlawish in some of us, I suspect if things continue to get worse, as in Depression bad, many of the younger members of my family would get wild again and even older relatives might hide another Bonnie & Clyde) is something that binds many of us together despite that we're such a mix of Christian conservatives, proud Rebels waving a Dixie flag, those who ignore the laws for a good party, those who have kids out of wedlock (or constantly divorcing and remarrying) or sexually bold and defiant like Mom, or eccentric like me often snipe at each other and yet there we are hanging together so we don't hang apart as our family has done as far back as anyone there can recall.

Firefly reminds me of my family's spirit, how the crew bicker yet stand together, tend to be cynical of authority & big government (some more so than others), how some are religious while others sneer at the idea of God, but they're still family. I sent the series to Zack one Christmas and he (and other relatives) loved it (the ONLY scifi he loved, unless you count Jason X). And I recall a vivid dream where I had to rescue Zack from jail (taking on some deputies) and Mal from Firefly gave me a lot of advice on how to do it.

The brewing drama is that Granny is leaving her house to me instead of Mom (and she's not going to take that well) because she doesn't trust Mom to keep it in the family, or to give me shelter if I need it. When I become the owner I'll let Mom live there (she can even have the master bedroom even if I move back in), but I'm keeping it in the family (it would be inconvenient to lose as it's well within the farm rather than by the side of the road and also allows easy access for the chores and someone else living there could do a lot of stealing). I don't trust Mom to let me live there if it was hers, and we certainly have some bad history, but I still have to let her live there (unless she tries to burn it down), I just want to make sure she doesn't screw the family over (she's just too bitter & vengeful to be trusted, but even so she's still allowed to live on the land because she's kin). It's not my home anymore and I bicker with many of them (many of whom don't agree with or even approve of me either), but I still got their back as they have mine because, well, we got to hang together or we'll hang apart.

posted May 04, 2013 08:33 PM            

What a surprise that you all have blond hair when I've been picturing you as a brunette!

posted May 04, 2013 11:30 PM            

But as for brunette, maybe you're thinking of Gretchen Wilson, like here in Redneck Woman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82dDnv9zeLs

Had I been able to live with Granny as I'd wanted then that would've probably been my life somewhat, too. And the part at 2:30 where she walks into her trailer reminds me so much of walking into Zack's trailer (though he doesn't live on a park, he and his family live on the farmland, in sight of his parent's house which he'll inherit someday as he is of Mom's trailer and Granny's house, and also other homes). And he and his wife love Gretchen Wilson, and also Toby Keith (despite that he's from Oklahoma), as well as Texas country (which overlaps outlaw) in addition to Southern Rock, and it includes some Dixie attitude (and flags, loud muffler on his truck, etc). And in his neck of the woods that COULD be called somewhat conventional, though many locals do look down on it as a bit trashy, and the smell of smoke & beer when you walk in doesn't help. (Plus it's a dry county, meaning it's illegal to sell alcohol, and plenty consider alcohol & tobacco a defilement of the body which is supposed to be a temple, though more accurately they just don't like anyone having fun, and OTOH some brag that their county is "the wettest dry county".)

Zack's 'rents are conventional enough, boomers who have settled, do an honest day's work on the farm, watch FOX News a lot, go to church (though they're not fanatical about it and have a realistic attitude about human behavior, I think it's more social to them with any religious purpose secondary), and have grudging acceptance in the community (which is hard for people in my family to get, they have to work twice as hard as everyone else to be fully accepted).

posted May 05, 2013 06:51 AM            

Though there are a good number of blonds and raven-haired people in my family. I myself went from blond to dark brown when I was five, without dye.

I was picturing you with....more of a pixie haircut. Predictably enough. And I was probably thinking of Teagan and Sara.

Your family life in Texas sounds difficult but fun, lots to do, lots of adventure. My family is the total opposite...though it was still emotionally difficult to deal with completely straight-laced, repressed, severe, cold family. Just another kind of hardship. I love how you all stuck together. I don't think that would happen even in my wildest dreams: it's every one for themselves in my clan.

posted May 05, 2013 10:27 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Faith:
I was picturing you with....more of a pixie haircut. Predictably enough. And I was probably thinking of Teagan and Sara

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I DO like pixie cuts and have gotten them more than once.

And I did look a lot like that when I thumbed to California. To help make sure I couldn't be returned if arrested on the way I cut my hair short and dyed it black, so I did look a lot like them. It was funny because at the time I went by the name Jane (my middle), though I'd changed it to "Janet" as an alias, and while at a truck stop a Deadhead I never saw before yelled, "JANE!" I was deeply disturbed that he seemed to know who I was, but then I realized he thought I looked like Jane Lane from Daria (a popular show at the time).

Jane Lane (in red):

And it was a bit of luck, he and his friends got me the rest of the way to California (and to a much better place than LA as I'd been planning on).

posted May 06, 2013 07:08 AM            

Purple hair is something I associate with Sag. Because my Sag cousin is the first person I ever saw with purple hair. I know you have a lot of Sag in your chart, too.

posted May 06, 2013 07:35 AM            

Yes, it seems like you must have a lot going on in your 12H!

I am really amazed by your resilience. And super curious about your life...did you know anyone in the country you were sent to? (Have you mentioned here before which country you're in? I don't want to pry.) Are you still at risk at all for being "sold off"?

Your story is a bit like mine in that wealth and prestige actually caused a lot of misery. My influential great grandfather was, by all accounts, a very friendly man, but my grandmother (his daughter) never forgave him for sending her off to boarding school. I think that may be where some of the trouble began.

(Edited out details)

posted May 06, 2013 07:52 AM            

not in touch with either one.

not in much connection with the inner family (household) either.

posted May 06, 2013 08:45 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Faith:
^ Is that common in Israel? Did you grow up in a kibbutz?

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live in central israel ^^ (not tel aviv unfortunally)

posted May 07, 2013 10:41 AM            

Thank you for your kind words I think I’m just stubborn and lucky. The ruling element of my chinese/oriental birth chart is fire and metal. That explains the hot temper and the stubbornness

I’m happy to say that they can’t get a hold of me now. They had plans for me and did try to make things difficult for me. But they eventually gave up

I was sent to America at first, and then to Australia. I have a lot of relatives in both countries, but I didn’t stay with them. I stayed with host families for a little while, and with my father or a little while. Then I moved out and rented a room with my friend. I worked and continued my study and life was good. Then I met my husband and moved to Canada with him.

Yeah I understand what you mean, sometimes I do feel that the people in my family were/are too hung up on wealth and power. But sometimes I do wonder if I’ve judged them too harshly. In the past, they lived in the chaotic aftermath of the war, so the only things that could ensure survival were money and political power/connection. Even now life isn’t so easy for them, I think. Perhaps I just don’t understand the life they live so I guess I can’t judge.

posted May 07, 2013 02:28 PM            

Wonderful to hear about your family experiences. Mine are too sad... I am an extremely family-oriented person who was "shunned"--- but in my heart I hug them all with my imagination... From a distance I understand them. And it's physically-emotionally safer to stay back. I figure that if one of them gets kindness and any magnanimity of soul, then they will find me and embrace me some day. It will be up to them, and not me. It's out of my hands. A few times a decade ago they'd try to contact "ONLY" to 'pump me for information' and when they'd be satisfied, I knew that they had only "played" me for a fool--- once again! I got some 'self-respect' the day that daughter#2 told me daughter#1's 2nd baby was "sooo cute".... *slap-meh!!?* THAT WAS "THE MOMENT"..... I "woke up" and realized that NO ONE cared to 'include' me...that they only wanted to HURT me. So I dropped it all. I believe they only would contact me to see if I had "money" to be able to give them. When they realized I lived in irrecoverable poverty, they 'dropped' me-- it was too 'embarrassing' for them socially that they had a mom who had to live on the streets, unsheltered, for a while. They decided to "side" with my abuser-mother who is "well-off" and would BRIBE them with material things to get them to "hate" me. Money makes "comfy" --- poverty is suffering to be shunned. I've lived in the shadow of deep incredible gorge of pain and hurt that I do not deserve.... but I stay with cosmic understanding and stand with my head above it all--- there's a reason.... there's always a reason for everything... I just don't see the WHOLE picture... I will CHOOSE to leave my Soul exposed to that realm and know that there is Purpose in all this.

Jeremiah 29:11

I have at least (maybe more) two grandchildren that I've never seen. Part of "my mother's" cruelty--- all my life, seems that she was out to HURT me and STEAL from me and 'watch' and derive sadistic pleasures..... This has to be some weird weird karmic stuff, but I KNOW!!! that I did NOTHING to deserve this... So I'm just 'trusting the universal forces' on this one. I deserve good things. I turn the other cheek, but not getting slapped down anymore because I learned the IMPORTANT KEY to all this is to STEP away from the 'place of slapping'.... I don't have to be hurt like that anymore from that family...

I have very very good memories of my early childhood with my grandparents (both). I have keepsaked these in my heart and mind. I have excellent memories of my daughters. Besides the enormous love I feel for them, I recall how very very much I have admired their strengths and talents galore!! Unreal beauties! Everyone in my immediate family had incredible talent!! Creativity of EACH ONE is over the top, and have impacted the world and/or community where they are!! I am totally boggled at the potential each one has. The sad thing is that I could have synthesized what they had and were, and catalyzed it--- make them incredibly even-more effective in applying the talents that (for a few) got off the ground then frizzled and dumbed-down.... BECAUSE I was supposed to be 'in the equation'... and they left me out, never knowing what 'could' have been... ahck!!!

I will keep that 'anesthesia' around this cloud of pain over what happened....because it would be self destructive to 'feel' there anymore. I think one of the last times one of them contacted me was to inform me that my father (their granddad) had died.... 4 days earlier. I hadn't been in contact with him since mid 90s. The anniversary of his death was just a few days ago for me... Saturday. Even though I didn't have good relationship with him, I still loved him from the bottom of my heart. He was authority to me, but mother was the boss. With our nation failing right now, it brings back all the feelings about parents.... and crap on mother's day. I was more HER mother than she was mine.... And I love her and admire her too, like I did my dad. I have no idea if she is still living, but it could feel like tragedy to me when/if I hear of her passing. Maybe my daughters think their being mean to me by "not telling me" -- but actually, if they really wanted to be mean, they'd tell me...

I had some aunts that I haven't heard from in decades... I still love and care for them too...... just everything is so sad for me these days, so sad. watta mess.... It's all 'over' now for me, yikes to think that karmically we will be meeting again... good reason to stay alive so to "avoid" and prolong having to re-experience that! Wouldn't it be sooo convenient if after we die there's NOTHING? and we wouldn't be missing a thing!! AtheISM has it's perks! *sarcasm, of course*

My 3rd House is AQUA, My 4th is 2.30 Aries--- In the middle of this House of Siblings is an intercepted sign: PISCES. Transiting Neptune is 5 degrees, Transiting Chiron is around 13 degrees of PISCES. I have Neptune-rx in Libra in 10th House. My Moon is Virgo, intercepted in the 9th House across from all the Pisces pain..... My 8th House and 11th and 12th Houses are WATER signs... It's all about depth, and pain, and families, and hurting....

If you can say that there's any up-side to this, is that this has made me more aware and sensitive about the overall Family of HUMANs-kind. The caverns carved out my pain and left deep echoes.... But because it's a receiver, I can "hear" the cries of others in the world. The World echoes in the caves of my excavated Being--- I have caught her Soul......

(music) The Great Invocation (NewTroubadours) [1:52] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHUJQbGA9-c

<wrote this without editing.... please no whole-QUOTING... thanks! >

My oldest daughter loved DARIA.... I recall an episode where she made this quote.... was LMAO and never forgot it!

posted May 07, 2013 03:57 PM            

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NEPTUNE is about "forgiveness"... Forgive yourself for being wrong.... Forgive yourself for REALLY being wrong.

Full Moon in Sagittarius --> You know "Sagittarius" is half-human, half-horse... but it's mostly the horses' ass! *audience laughs*

And a Full Moon in Sagittarius is the time when we tend to see our "equine butt-ox,"... -- and forgiving ourselves for our foolishness, is a great act of grace... that can enable us to learn freely, rather than withdraw into 'the ignorance of shame'...

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posted May 07, 2013 07:25 PM            

I didn't even know you were married! I'm sorry, I thought you were like 18 from looking at your picture (please take that as a compliment) and I don't know your chart apart from your Cap sun.

What sign is your husband? Do you have kids? We have to catch up!

I'm married to a Leo, and we have five children. You reminded me of a really good point...establishing a new family helped me overcome and shift my focus from old family issues. Only once in a while do I get these pangs and sometimes they are kind of intense and seem to demand that I take some time apart and really dwell on what the whole puzzle means to me, at this stage in the game.

So thanks for listening and talking with me!

mirage

The women in your family remind me of my sister, times ten. If you knew how much my sister has meticulously worked her way under my skin to annoy me as much as possible....you'd see that I'm really shocked and appalled by what you are going through, and I am familiar enough with people acting...well, I don't want to insult anyone...let's just say, I believe what you are saying. I know what people are capable of.

So, big hug, tight squeeze, I'm glad that you seem to be doing okay, all things considered.

posted May 07, 2013 07:28 PM            

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Originally posted by mirage29:

"Sometimes your shallowness is so thorough, it's almost like depth..." -- DARIA cartoon

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