The Backward Language of the Tender Heart

This Mercury Rx is Cancer is directing my thoughts towards the places where I am tender and where I hide.

As a Leo rising, Cancer is in my 12th house. I also have both my Moon and Venus in Cancer, which has direct impact on how tender emotions are hidden from me. I talked about this a bit in The Cancer Grimoire and how it impacted my diagnosis and healing.

Having Mercury Rx in this sign, for me, is making me think about all the things I have never communicated or do not feel safe in communicating.

Not the blunt messages or critical conversations. I’m perfectly capable of delivering hard feedback and constructive criticism, making myself clearly understood, and connecting with people through sharing and narrative. In fact I pride myself on these skills.

No, it’s the tender things that I have difficulty with. The “you hurt me” or “I feel betrayed” or “you are judging me harshly and it’s painful” are incredibly challenging for me. The idea that I have to ask for acceptance or understanding is abhorrent. In part because I know it’s not a misunderstanding - I can, as I said, make myself easily understood - but also because if I AM being misunderstood it’s often because I’m hiding my heart away so it doesn’t get injured.

In fact, my primary relationship is lovely because with this person, I am well and easily understood (and I hope I understand in turn). This is a huge blessing and gift for me, who never felt that kind of heart understanding before them.

But in other cases, it does not come easily. And I’ve been working on healing this wound and manifesting some better ways of coping for some time now. It’s a process of working to sweeten the dank parts of myself that are festering so that they can ferment into something new. But it’s also a process of exposure — of coughing up the stone lodged in my throat.

…So shadow work basically.

And currently, I’m pointing this effort back into time.

What does it mean that the people who were supposed to accept me unconditionally applied so many conditions to my acceptance?

How do I express deep hurt and betrayal to someone who refuses to hear or listen (and blames ME for their unwillingness to engage and then airs that dirty laundry publically)?

This is far from the “your hot water heater just shit the bed” of a recent 8th house Pisces Mercury Rx or the “error and fail publically with a spotlight on you” of Mercury Rx in Leo in my first.

And this is what makes astrology so interesting… even when it kind of sucks. Because it’s descriptive and predictive… but it’s also prescriptive. It’s an invitation to engage in a framework for healing and growing along with an incarnate destiny or life pattern.