Divine Retribution

NORTH NODE, CHIRON, ARIES

DIVINE RETRIBUTION

I wasn’t prepared for the opportunity to revisit the birthplace of some of my deepest wounds when my daughter started middle school.

Jut like me, She has a BIG presence. She’s beautiful, strong, and cool. By cool, I mean, not a lot rattles her. She’s a true Aquarius Sun, Leo Rising, Taurus Moon. All fixed signs.

She is the embodiment of her own uncompromising authenticity.

Well balanced between introvert and extrovert.

She grew up in a home with three older brothers. Her sense of humor is dry, and intimacy comes through joking around.

The girls around her want her to be smaller, “nicer”. I can see in their exchanges the expectation that she fawn. Instead I’ve raised her to be direct, honest, and kind. And for the most part she is.

The other thing is, she so deeply desires belonging. And has a super juicy, big heart.

Admittedly it’s tough to find belonging when your presence is this big. When you know who you are. And are resolute in holding yourself in that knowing. There’s a way that big radiance can feel painful to others, or there is a fear we will outshine them in some way.

There’s always a point between childhood and adolescence when our children’s innocence gives way to “fitting in”.

Each time my children have moved through this passage, I’ve grieved. It’s like their magic fades into the background. Exchanged for belonging.

While it’s a natural passage, I also understood how much is lost here, so overtime, I done my best to protect it in my kids.

Undoubtedly as my youngest, my daughter has been the biggest beneficiary of my own work. I see the perfect design in not being given the daughter I prayed for until last. I was 31 when she came.

We’ve worked really hard on healthy friend choices, healthy boundaries, knowing her value, not bringing toxic dynamics into friendships etc.

What I hadn’t planned for, was the idea that other parents wouldn’t be doing this work, and some of her own standards would leave her isolated.

This past year as I’ve coached her through endless friendship issues, I’ve been really trying to refine where we are at with some of these principles. Not to compromise persè, but to be sure that we aren’t holding rigid standards, and rather that everyone’s humanity is held in compassion as we navigate relationships healthily.

However, the other day something cropped up that caught me off guard.

She was joking with a friend and it hit a chord. A benign joke, but nonetheless, it upset her friend. She immediately apologized.

They were at a big sleepover party, so the friend had an opportunity to recruit other girls into her upset, rather than accept the apology. And that’s the route the friend took.

The other girl wound up calling my daughter all kinds of nasty names. Including “psychotic

b!tvh”.

When going over the story the following morning, I asked my daughter what she did.

I know in our culture we have a thing about power dynamics. That the big person should give space for the little person to “have their feelings”.

When I asked her if she defended herself, she said “Mom, if I say something back to her, they will use it as proof that I am mean, like she’s accusing me of, so I can’t say anything back or it will make me look guilty”.

This immediately struck me.

I asked her how she felt about that, she said “angry, it’s unfair”.

I agree.

We should never have to eat other people’s projections.

We should always have the option to defend and protect ourselves from a grounded place.

And at this point, I don’t mind if her defense is ungrounded. She’s 12. I just want her to know that no matter her size, big or small, no matter the power dynamics, she doesn’t have to make any part of her expression smaller to accommodate others. She doesn’t have to absorb nasty words just because she can. And at this age, learning this will probably be messy.

She needed the permission to defend herself. Not just because it’s fair:

But because I don’t want her internalizing, or absorbing the things being thrown her way.

I’m here to rewrite this idea that people who are considered “big” can’t defend and protect themselves.

Honoring our own worth with strength, isn’t proof that we are the bad guy.

I’m here to reclaim strong feminine provision for ourselves when it’s called for.

More than just blocking, and doing all the passive things, if a larger response is called for, I support unleashing it without fear that people will see it as mean. And if they do, that’s their issue.

This is what we are up against in our current culture overrun with “niceness programming”.

Clear communication taken as meanness.

Holding boundaries, leaves people feeling victimized.

A lack of fawning is perceived as a lack of love.

A misapplication of “power dynamics” is being used to silence people.

In my daughters case; The idea that being victimized by someone’s human misfire is the more powerful route to take rather than staying in connection.

And then, there’s Cancel Culture around these tenets.

It’s left us without recourse. Designed to keep us bound in a codependent fawning culture.

As I said, I’m here to reclaim the story that we are not able to defend and protect ourselves when necessary.

Yes I am a stand for love. But that doesn’t mean I’m a doormat.

In fact, it’s my boundaries and knowing that I can defend myself when necessary, that increases my capacity to love.

Just like I told my daughter, if someone attacks me (especially through trying to shame me with this Death Mother energy) I will loudly defend myself.

Not from a lack of love, but because I love myself enough to provide my own provision.

As the North Node moves ever closer to her Conjunction with Eris, and Chiron in Aries, I think this is an important conversation to have.

Divine retribution is a thing. We’ve stopped practicing it, as “niceness projects” have cropped up across our society.

We really need to bring discernment to these places.

Are we taking a hit so we don’t appear mean? Is a PROPORTIONATE defense called for here?

Chiron here gives us an opportunity to heal this dynamic within us. So we can step into our strength in an empowered way.

With the Sun in Leo trining this triple conjunction in Aries, it highlights giving grounded expression to our anger, to our rage, to the places we have just “taken it” because we thought it would “be mean” to fight back. Or because a perceived imbalanced power dynamic says we don’t have the right. It’s not true. We always have the right to fortify and defend ourselves, and what we’ve built.

The other consideration here is how we muzzle ourselves in spiritual communities because anger is seen as a “less evolved emotion”. I actually call bullsh!t on this. Righteous anger, applied in the rightness, is extremely spiritual. Jesus upended the money changers tables at the temple… lest we forget.

Art Robyn Drayson