Playing Dead

I play dead like the best of dogs. But I don’t do it for a treat. In fact, it’s quite a miserable reaction to certain stresses in my life.

Here are a few concrete examples:

1. If Andrew is driving and I’m sure we are going to crash (which is every 10 minutes even though Andrew is an excellent driver), I close my eyes and stop breathing.

1. If I am feeling something that I consider unpleasant (like I’m mad at someone or hurt), I grow very still, kind of glaze over and refuse to admit I feel anything.

1. If I feel overwhelmed with my ongoing to-do list and feel desperately behind in my LIFE PLAN, I sink into the couch and don’t breathe. I barely move.

I’ve noticed this in a more heightened way recently. I’ve also noticed, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t end the stress or prevent icky stuff from happening. What it does do is make me uncomfortable, close down any possibility of depth or intimacy and effectively make me completely unable to move gracefully in the world.

But here is where some good astrology can come in.

Caroline Casey (http://www NULL.coyotenetworknews NULL.com) writes of the outer planets — Uranus, Neptune and Pluto–that “these Change Gods will do whatever it takes to liberate us from the constraints of our conditioning so that we may exercise our full imaginative freedom.”  She then tells the story of Pavlov’s dogs. Apparently, there was a flood in his laboratory and none of the dogs that survived retained ANY of their conditioning. “And so it is with us,” she says,
“when we undergo startling disruption.”

I woke up this morning in a spirit of invitation. That is, I recognize how tired I am of any remaining moments of numbness or closure in my life. And I am willing, in order to be fully awake and alive to undergo Pavlov’s flood. (As I write this, of course, I hear my scared self say, “but make it a nice flood, a controllable flood, one that doesn’t do too much damage).

If we are willing, though, to invite these Change Gods in –to surrender to something much larger than ourselves on a daily basis – we can practice for the moments in our life when everything falls apart. And we practice by filling our dance card with planets that keep us awake, breathing and ever transforming.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Uranus invites us to keep our eyes open, to stay awake and deal head-on with change. It invites us to try something new — something radically different. It invites us to break out of a pattern. It also invites us to be who we are without apology and to assume that others will find that authentic self lovable, intelligent or interesting. (In other words, intimacy doesn’t have to be scary).

Neptune invites us to be as the ocean– deep, changeable, all inclusive. It invites us to see every moment as a moment that is on its way to turning into something else. A wave surfaces, breaks and rejoins the ocean. Every moment does this. The ocean is something greater than one particular fear, dread or stress. Neptune invites us to merge with the moment a bit more and use our imaginations and vision to transcend the wretchedness.

Pluto insists we remember who we truly are. With Pluto, we take our power back. We give it away when we close our eyes, go numb or stop breathing. An inhalation connects us with breath — the oxygen that keeps us all alive. Pluto reminds us that the ugly stuff and the frozen places are all just love waiting to be unfurled.  Pluto says, remember you have knees. Get down on them, surrender to your soul and wrestle everything that isn’t love into the light.  You are strong enough and powerful enough to do it. Pluto says, There’s a whole new more essential you waiting to be freed from past conditioning.

All of these planetary energies are available to us at any time. Ask yourself, “Do I need to WAKE UP? Do I need to TRANSCEND the mundane or use my imagination to free up the stuckness? Do I need to CUT to the ESSENCE?

I invite us all to ask our selves the question, “How do we play dead and why?” I figure we all die soon enough. Let’s all practice a little wide-eyed, deep-breathing gratitude.

ps. Sitting in a Hammock (http://sherri NULL.machighway NULL.com/~heidiros/2010/hammock-mondays/) is not Playing Dead. It is deeply necessary reinvigoration and replenishment.