When my son Taz turned 11 in 2007 he had an upburst of testosterone so powerful it rattled the kitchen cabinets. For several days I thought the boy was having an allergic reaction to our early spring, or was scoring steroids in the bathroom at school.<\/p>\n Taz is a triple Leo \u0432\u0402\u201c Sun rising and his ruling planet, Venus, in Leo. I am a triple Cancer, with a splashy Mars\/Uranus conjunct in my Cancerian eighth house. We do not, by way of understatement, argue nicely.<\/p>\n On this particular Saturday morning, no opportunity to act-out was left unexploited, no door went un-slammed (except the refrigerator\u0432\u0402\u2122s); shoes, t-shirts, books were dropped in doorways, kicked along the stairs. He raged through brushing his teeth, used the remote by hurling it at the TV and things seemed to break just by being in the room with him. We had gone from zero to 60 before breakfast, and the energy had not yet peaked.<\/p>\n I called my creative partner \u0432\u0402\u201c a double Taurus with Virgo rising — and described the riotous conditions. He lived 100 miles up the road, in a household of continuous mayhem. His method of dealing with it had been simply to acquiesce. \u0432\u0402\u045aLet it be,\u0432\u0402\u045c he said, his bottomless patience washing over me.<\/p>\n I had my eye on a lunar eclipse coming up later that day, and was determined to make a rendezvous with the event. My method would be to meet Taz\u0432\u0402\u2122s onslaught with the \u0432\u0402?peaceful answer, which turneth away wrath.\u0432\u0402\u2122 It would be an experiment, to see how hot and tepid intermingled.<\/p>\n And there was plenty of opportunity to mingle, if not tangle. My consort called back around noon, surprised to find me uncharacteristically serene. The kiddo\u0432\u0402\u2122s temper ramped and flowed throughout the day. When I offered a homeopathic remedy for anger, it triggered a stomping fit that cracked the downstairs ceiling.<\/p>\n Five o\u0432\u0402\u2122clock rolled around, and I wanted to be in visual range of the rising Moon. My bedroom windows faced north, and this required eastern sightlines. The living room was the only place in the house that offered this orientation. I dragged my cushions downstairs and plopped them in front of the TV.<\/p>\n \u0432\u0402\u045aWhat are you doing<\/em>?!\u0432\u0402\u045c the young dragon screeched from the stairwell. \u0432\u0402\u045aMeditating,\u0432\u0402\u045c I said, \u0432\u0402\u045acare to join me?\u0432\u0402\u045c This invitation \u0432\u0402\u201c like everything that day — was not well received. The neighbors in the adjoining duplex thumped the common wall in frustration.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u0432\u0402\u045aPretty sure they can hear you,\u0432\u0402\u045c I noted, \u0432\u0402\u045abut now I am going Inside.\u0432\u0402\u045c<\/p>\n I closed my eyes. No yogin* in a cave full of centipedes ever had a rougher launch. Taz started small — throwing pencils, wadded up paper, plastic animals. Most bounced off the wall, a few landed on the side of my head. I sat, breathing, announcing my confidence in the universe and its awakened Ones. From his point of view this was intolerable: I must<\/em> be mocking him. He stomped upstairs, returning with better ammo. Clothing, rubber balls, a couple of books. But the trance had kicked in. Eyes still closed, I felt my body sway to avoid the largest of these projectiles. After about 15 minutes he gave up in disgust, went back to his room and sulked.<\/p>\n Lunar eclipses often feel very \u0432\u0402?hot\u0432\u0402\u2122 to me, not surprising since my natal Aquarius Moon keeps a quincunxed lid on that eighth house pressure-cooker. Eclipses let the lid slide off a degree or two, but this one felt cool compared to the triple-Sun-boy standing above me on the stairs. By 5:30 there was a gust of starry, chill energy sweeping through the room. The physical temperature actually fell about 15 degrees. I opened my eyes and started laughing. Everything Taz had thrown in his rage had formed an archipelago around me. I thought briefly about asking him to take a picture before I stood up, but decided against it. Better to let sulking Lions lie.<\/p>\n Part II \u0432\u0402\u201c Sunday morning<\/strong><\/p>\n The next morning, even before opening my eyes, I realized that something was off. Way off. I felt haggard, compressed — as though I had been swallowed by a morose anaconda. It took half an hour to convince myself to swing my legs over the edge of the bed. Feet on the floor, I spent another 15 minutes considering the relative futility of almost everything. Things did not improve when I stood up.<\/p>\n Taz was already downstairs, chatting with his friends online, a bowl of cereal on the coffee table. \u0432\u0402\u045aHey Mom,\u0432\u0402\u045c he greeted me brightly. I grunted something in Mommish, and lumbered toward the kitchen. Standing in the doorway, confusion swarmed me: what was I doing here, and why? Some kind of existential crisis was trying to declare itself, but the inquisitive part of my mind was running diagnostics. This (hmmm), this despair (hmmm), it felt \u0432\u0402\u201c well, physical<\/em>.<\/p>\n Moving with the panache of a sloth on Demerol, I pulled out the teapot and filled it up. As the water started to heat, it hit me: this is the product of ignoring aggression. Now<\/em> I got it. One day of allowing Taz to run over me, and I was in the tank. I had watched my partner take similar blows of abuse and scorn for years; saw it age him, perforate his humor, chew up his gifts. But this desolation \u0432\u0402\u201c as norepinephrines are told to shush, sit down, be good — would be the real consequence, every fucking day.<\/p>\n I turned back to the stove; my dulled reflexes did not see the sleeve of my robe in the fire. I raised my arm, wreathed in flames. \u0432\u0402\u045aUh\u0432\u0402\u00a6 hey, Taz\u0432\u0402\u00a6\u0432\u0402\u045c I turned toward the living room, trailing my waist-length hair across the burning sleeve. \u0432\u0402\u045aCould you come here a sec?\u0432\u0402\u045c Flipping my hair over my shoulders, it set fire to the back of my robe. Taz rounded the corner, making a perfect Homer Simpson scream when he saw his mother standing in a fiery nimbus. I pulled the robe over my head and onto the floor as he scrambled to fill a bowl with water. He hesitated, wondering if he could get away with dousing me in the middle of the kitchen. I cocked an eyebrow and pointed to the smoldering robe: \u0432\u0402\u045aFire\u0432\u0402\u2122s on the floor, dude.\u0432\u0402\u045c<\/p>\n The tableau couldn\u0432\u0402\u2122t have been more vivid. Unrequited anger, turned away at the gate — even under color of mindfulness — had triggered the cascade of stupefaction called \u0432\u0402?depression\u0432\u0402\u2122. After I crawled through the aftermath and scored this insight, life brought a quick reveille — so loud my hair caught fire. It might as well have been spontaneous combustion.<\/p>\n The next day I picked up a late appointment in my neighborhood salon. After Saria had trimmed away the toasty bits, I said, \u0432\u0402\u045aWhile I\u0432\u0402\u2122m here, let\u0432\u0402\u2122s go ahead and light it up.\u0432\u0402\u045c \u0432\u0402\u045aYou\u0432\u0402\u2122re finally going blonde!\u0432\u0402\u045c she crowed. The day was westering, and a rare green twilight hovered on the horizon, somewhere between the sun\u0432\u0402\u2122s auratic gold and a shadow of lunar blue. \u0432\u0402\u045aOnly on the way to that color,\u0432\u0402\u045c I said, pointing to the phantom light. \u0432\u0402\u045aI doubt that<\/em> comes in a bottle, but we\u0432\u0402\u2122ll see what we can do.\u0432\u0402\u045c<\/p>\n *practitioner of yoga<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Mysti Easterwood Part I \u0432\u0402\u201c Saturday When my son Taz turned 11 in 2007 he had an upburst of testosterone so powerful it rattled the kitchen cabinets. For several days I thought the boy was having an allergic reaction to our early spring, or was scoring steroids in the bathroom at school. Taz is … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,52,1133,1134,1136,117,1135],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11789"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Mysti](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/mystbooks3.jpg?resize=250%2C321&ssl=1\" "\\"mystbooks3\\"")