The Dark Eros Oracle – Wisdom from the Underworld:
Wisdom of the Underworld ~ Your source for answers to questions on Love & Hate, Creativity & Destruction, Women’s Mystery Rites… and the Art of Self Creation.
Welcome to the Dark Eros Oracle. Since time immemorial people have sought out Oracles to help them with the puzzles and challenges Life brings them. They’ve used symbolic systems such as the Tarot cards and astrology, as well as runes and bones. Witches had a scrying technique of looking into black inky water to portend the future. Kings had their advisers which consulted the stars and the four elements. The one I most adore is the Pythoness, the Oracle at Delphi. These were women who lived deep in caves and Kings sought them out for their divining powers.
Over the last 30 years I have immersed myself in esoteric teachings of the religions of the world and their symbolic languages. I have studied shamanism, astrology, gnosticism. Yet the most powerful oracle I was exposed to was Jung and archetypal psychology. It was here that I was turned back upon myself to examine the symbols of my own psyche, both within and as the events that play out on the stage of life.
Though my last name is Prophet, I do not see myself with extraordinary powers of sight or future knowing. The future is constantly defined by our choices in each moment. It is ever changing as we are. Yet I do hold a reservoir of wisdom from the 30 years of indepth study in symbolic systems and myths which serve me in reflecting on life’s hieroglyphs.
Dear Dark Eros Oracle,
I am a 50-year old woman, single, and fairly independent. My natal Mercury and Mars are conjunct in the sign of Scorpio and Sun in Libra, all in the 8th House. I give this background because I think it is the source of this particular challenge. When I am confronted with “issues” by people, primarily women, I think I can come across as harsh or aggressive or intimidating. I don’t mean to do this; it is completely unconscious and I know that I have, sometimes, gone too far when I witness the reactions I get from those with whom I’m speaking or, when, later, I detect some underlying tension.
I can be fairly passionate about issues and, at the same time, I can be quite objective too. Both these approaches have gotten me “in trouble” with women friends. My male friends seem to be fine with my approach or, if they feel I’m being too aggressive, they’ll call me on it, we’ll flush the issue out, then we’re good. I know I embody a lot of masculine energy but at the same time, I am quite intuitive and can feel tension quite strongly. Right now, I am in the midst of this challenge with two women who are physically quite close to me. They would let it go and let the tension remain. It is me that has to bring the subject to light and try to flush it out to move through. Right now, I am so weary of it that it is causing me to completely shut down and retreat into myself. How can I bring my way to a higher level of consciousness “in the moment”?
Anonymous
Dear Mercury & Mars in Scorpio in the 8th House,
For those who don’t understand your preceding remark about your natal Mercury and Mars, et. al. Mercury symbolically represents the archetype of communication. Mars represents our aggressive nature, fight or flight, war. Scorpio is also experienced as having aggressive energy, usually only when provoked yet its form of communication is direct and to the depth of the issue in this archetype. The 8th House is Scorpio’s House ruled by Pluto. Potent ways.
So your intrinsic nature naturally tends toward more direct aggressive communication. A lot of men naturally embody these energies in a more overt way so they are not offended by how you communicate. Women are biologically moved to relate and connect and be social and warm. And thus this form of communication can feel cutting, demeaning, a put down. It is a challenge when our natural tendencies offend others when it was not our intention to do so.
Communication is one of the greatest arts there are. It requires us to expand awareness to include others and if we want to be understood, speak in their language, especially to those who we are in intimate relationship with. Otherwise we choose to have no end of friction and tension in our relationship. Tension certainly can serve, but over time, it also erodes trust.
So what to do when something is so deep we are unconscious to it? One can certainly work on a behavioral level with excellent methods like the Art of Non-violent Communication to change how we are impacting others in how we communicate. These are the kinds of issues I take into my Embodied Arts work. I enter into my authentic movement with the intention to explore both the warrior in me… and the victim, the passive side of my aggressor. For no matter what we outwardly express, we inwardly hold its opposite which the other person is representing for us. In this case the axis would be passive-aggressive. In astrology it could be the Scorpio-Taurus axis. Also Libra-Ares.
Once you come in touch with and realize your shadow, the dance on the outer WILL change. When something is a deep part of your nature, it will take time. But as long as you choose to work with it, the outward projection will change over time! We are ALL of it!!
If your skill at communicating so that you are truly understood all the while caring for the other means a lot to you, I highly recommend pursuing it like the Art it is. Look at Marshal Rosemberg’s Art of Non Violent Communication, and dive into yourself and explore the axis of passive-aggressive.
The Dark Eros Oracle
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Dear Dark Eros Oracle,
I have had the presence of snake imagery in dreams and sandplay. It freaks me out because I don’t yet know experientially the snake as anything but terrifying even though I know intellectually that it has many meanings. I know that you have worked much with and related in real ways to snakes. Please enlighten and advise me.
~ Janet
Dear Janet,
The snake is the most primal of creatures. It’s resonant with our own limbic brain. Fight and flight. The snake is purely instinctual. When I first brought my snakes home, I was excited and enthralled. As I fed them, something changed. Something was awakened when I saw them hunt and kill the mouse. I experienced both the force of being the hunter… and the terror of being the prey. It penetrated my nervous system. Suddenly I was gripped with a fear that touched on phobia. I loathed feeding them. They became larger than life and I was frozen in my fear. Then one of them became ill and I had to care intensively for him, and in the process, fell back in love and the projection of terror disappeared.
Primal fear & power. I have always had powerful snake dreams! They were either incredibly beautiful, omniscient and wise… or, giant black snakes that were out to kill me. I wrestled with these black snakes for years in my authentic movement and paintings. Eventually, I realized they represented the energy of my father whose intensely raw passionate depressive force penetrated all of his children. It has required everything I have to tame these creatures and bring them under the power of the feminine. When they are, they are my allies. When they are on their own, they are deadly.
Work & play with the images! Get yourself a stuffed snake! paint them… be one and crawl on the floor. Explore them intensively with your imagination. Hold a live snake. They are visiting you for a purpose. They have something to give you.
The Dark Eros Oracle
Click here to ask a question to the Dark Eros Oracle. Your name and information will be kept anonymous.