By Sarah Taylor
For now we see through a glass, darkly;
but then face to face: now I know in part;
but then shall I know even as also I am known.— 1 Corinthians 13:12, King James Bible
I’m sitting here, today, amidst the detritus of my son’s toys (It amazes me the mess that one small person can make!), in the house that he, I and our au pair moved to less than a fortnight ago — marking the physical separation from my ex-husband, from whom I separated in name over a year ago.
In some ways my most intimate relationships are a reflection of my family of birth: I leave in my wake a history of co-dependence and control; I can see my own role in games of emotional withdrawal and avoidance; I carry with me the self-same triad of mother, carer, child that I was a part of when I was growing up.
In other ways, my relationships and my life feel like my own: unlike my parents — whose divorce was bitter and embattled — my ex-husband and I have a solid, loving friendship; I have chosen to be a single mother instead of staying together ‘for the sake of the children’; as much as I love male company — the banter, the physicality, the meeting and merging of different energies — I am finding a contentment in being on my own. If the last half-year has taught me anything, it has taught me to craft the conviction that I will not enter a new relationship in half-measures any more. It is time to start re-introducing myself to the parts of me that have remained shut off through fear, shame and a sense of not being deserving enough to own them.
This, to me, feels like the stuff of Venus Retrograde in Gemini — the theme of this week’s tarot article.