Oops! Yes. I’m with Celia Farber who, when a friend of hers stated the above, wrote on her new substack post: “I think I said the word ‘gulp’ out loud.”
Because yes, that’s me too. GULP!
Celia Farber: Victim Consciousness
Because, basically, I’m chronically liverish, secretly angry, full of mostly unstated “judgments” and yes, I must admit: full of self-importance: “I’m smarter, more informed, than you are.”
Even with Sunday off, I’m still reflecting back on my outburst, my terrible rant, at my old high school friend and short-lived marriage partner in our 30s over a basic disagreement that he didn’t even know we had, until I let him know, “in no uncertain terms.” In other words, full of my own self-importance, I judged him. I yelled at him. I tried to shake him loose.
Now I might look at this encounter as my attempt to “save” him from whatever may be coming down the road for him, re: his having be-lie-ved in the covid con. Re: the poison now running through his body. Hell! It’s likely running through mine as well, since I live with an ever-changing parade of wonderful young people who go to Indiana University and so of course have been similarly indoctrinated to the point of innocently admitting the shedding poison into their bodies. In other words, I’m a “victim,” too — no matter how smart I thought I was, no matter how informed, never complying even with the so-called covid test, much less letting a needle into me — yes, damn it! I’m a victim too.
The youtube video Celia picked out to contextualize our victim consciousness especially stuck with me. A short clip by the founder of Nonviolent Communication, or NVC. Of course I’ve heard of it, and at first, followed along exactly the protocols recommended by a local woman who, years ago, claimed to teach it. But it seemed artificial, the way she went about it. So I let it go.
Meanwhile, mostly, I am non-violent, having advanced, mostly through great age and lessons learned, into a mostly steady awareness that more or less graciously and lovingly holds all my encounters with others without identifying with my part in them. Knowing that judgments are only possible if identification takes place, I thought I was in the clear. Or, ah . . . mostly.
Secret judgments, yes. They’re automatic. I have to notice, and let go, of each one as it tries to take me over.
But I’m not in the clear. Marshall Rosenberg, founder of NVC, in this wondrous short clip, let me know in no uncertain terms:
“All judgment is a a tragic expression of an unmet need.”
Wow. That statement held me in its grip all day yesterday. What is the unmet need within me that results in the tendency to judge another?
I’d like to see, (and I always say, full of astrological self-importance) that it’s just because of my fiery, triple Sagittarian nature (Sun/Ascendant/Mars). Since Sagittarius is the sign that governs large ideas, widening perspectives (unlike it’s opposite, airy Gemini, the sign that governs one’s perception and communication of “facts,” one by one by one). Sagittarius connects “facts” into ever-growing webs; or it can. IF, and it’s a big if, the webs ARE allowed to keep growing, and not get caught, in time and space, into a dogma, which then hold the person in its spell, wearing an impervious conceptual helmet, dogma serving as the source of “identity”, which then justifies “self-importance.”
Well, what was the dogma that held me? Roman Catholicism, of course. Also, early childhood conditioning, to be a good girl, always compliant, doing what mom needed and dad decreed.
Back in high school, this old friend and I, who was not Catholic, disagreed about the purpose and meaning of life. I judged him then, too. Worried that, unless he converted, he would go to hell. Or at least purgatory, indefinitely. And he just took my terrified (on the inside) stridency (on the outside) in stride, the way he did in our latest encounter, with calm kindness. So I should just let it go, of course. It’s just a repeat of our childhood exchanges!
But something drives me further, to investigate just why that outburst came when it did. And I wonder if Clif High’s way of looking at what’s happening may be relevant here. Contention, as he puts it, is going to be more and more of an issue over the next few months especially.
And yes, today, on Inauguration Day of the second (or is it the third?) Donald J. Trump presidency, wouldn’t you know I would be obsessing on this still bifurcated cultural soup we’re all in; over the past week or so noticing an increased anxiety, on the part of seemingly everybody out in public, including, obviously, myself. How much is it the continued snow pack, and now the deep freeze? (1° F 9:00 AM). How much is it the left’s terror of Trump and what kind of “retribution” he will enact for having had lawfare turned against him by his enemies? How much is it the right’s populist self-importance (like mine), a mostly unvoiced, because I want to be polite, “I told you so” attitude? How much is fear or hope that he will be assasinated by a deep state planted manchurian candidate of some kind. On and on.
I watched much of the victory rally last night, amazed at what I can only assume are the prayers of what seems to have become the vast majority of a nation’s (or even the whole world’s) people protecting him in life, despite, no doubt, all sorts of deep state plants who want him dead, and the sooner the better.
As I write this, we are in the hours closing in on the 12:00 Presidential Inauguration. During that hour the Moon will have just crossed over Trump’s expansive natal Jupiter and the illuminative Sun, at 0°37 Aquarius, forming a near exact conjunction with death/rebirth Pluto at 1° Aquarius, will reach cazimi over the next few days. He plans on signing off on 200 Executive Orders, this afternoon. Just to start. Melee’. Nothing will remain the same.
See my neighbor Margaret Menge’s Crossroads Report, from yesterday.
Donald Trump as Ann Rand’s Howard Roark.
