Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsPatience and Disclosure
When someone asks you an astute question, especially if it has a personal probe within it, you’re especially alert, even uncomfortable. -This is why our social ways and language teach us to say something like, “May I ask you a personal question?” We set up a warning of what’s to come.
Even when you are paying for someone’s help and that someone is asking the question -even then-you feel the twinge of being intruded upon. Recall the last discussion you had with someone helping you with your income taxes; or even with your doctor, asking simple questions which went deep. We professionals don’t ask permission to ask the questions that mean so much. We are actually expected to ask them! But nevertheless, the process can be imbalancing.
Well, we must remember that in our training to be therapeutically poised astrologers, asking strongly and artfully crafted questions to stimulate disclosure (please see The Creative Astrologer), our clients can easily feel that same buzz of having their inner space invaded. -While that’s what is necessary, the process often triggers defensiveness.
For example, the reliability of the Saturn retrograde phenomenon carries no doubt with it. Phrased properly, introduced into the consultation with grace, it is one of the most insightful analytical probes in the study of the human condition. But what astrologer has not heard the immediate defense offered by the client?
The defense seems necessary to the client, since the past experience and the inner voice recalling that experience recognize the deficiency. It should not have been; I must substitute something for it. “I loved my father; he provided for us well; he worked very hardÖetc.” FINE -but was he there? Etc.
The astrologer can be easily rattled here. The client’s profession of total devotion to the father is really not the issue; the defense shows theneed for the love and leadership bond, the yearning for it, the hope for it, in the light of its not being there. And the astrologer -knowing this-must be patient. Waiting perhaps through three sentences of exchanges later will usually be time enough for the client to “allow” the framing of realistic recall. The delay gives time to the mind to establish poise and manage reality recall: “Well, you’re right: he was always away; no he didn’t ever say ‘I love you, let me show you the way!’, but I know he did; he and my mother never got along; we kids were caught in the middle of it; I was neglected because of all that; I found myself siding with her so many times when they battledÖ” Etc.
Patience as well must accompany investigation of the Lunar Nodal axis involvement with planets or points in the horoscope (by fourth harmonic). We do not expect the negative, just the formatively imposing, the intrusive, the smothering perhaps related to the mother. We have to listen for it in the responses: “My mother did her very best for me; she was a saint; you’re right, it was a bit much Ö she dominated so much of my thinking, controlled my relationshipsÖetc.” –And what of that experience for so many years do you think you have carried forward into your adult life now?
The Nodal Axis phenomenon may also apply to some other woman in the extended family: a grandmother, an aunt, etc.
My client an hour ago, with Moon quindecile Pluto dominating the picture, when I introduced the subject of enormous mother influence/intrusion, uttered first a big sigh. And then she said, “I loved her with all my heart.” There was quite a pause, and then, “But it was not good.” –I pressed a bit further, patiently, and she continued: “There was no trust. She was protective and cruel at the same time … She followed me, betrayed me, sabotaged me…etc.” –If I had not pressed forward with this, I would have been left with the statement, “I loved her with all my heart.”
When I inquired further about her father as well (Saturn square Sun), she said, “I loved him with all my heart, but he died when I was almost five (tr Neptune conjunct MC).” The same phrase that began her recall –an idealistically wistful wish– was well noted. It is interesting here indeed that this lady at 48 has a husband well into his eighties.
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Patience pays off. Stick to your guns. Believe your skill with the symbolic guidelines of astrology. Be graceful and circumspect.
If the resistance is truly enduring, don’t get into an argument about it; just ‘congratulate’ the client on being an exception Ö and go on Ö AND be alert to the client’s return to this issue perhaps 5 or 10 minutes later! With a clear recall of the difficulties! The mind simply needed more time; the probe was so powerful and startling.