When the Bough Breaks...

As I write this, we're on the precipice of the new moon in Aries, along with a partial solar eclipse, and we just had Spring Equinox - oh, and did I mention Lilith is making an appearance in Scorpio? This entire orchestra is begging us to ask - what is/are the object(s) of our desire? Where have we played it small to stay safe? What pain/trauma are we FINALLY willing to alchemize into power?

I've been asked to suspend myself like my Padrino, so for the last two days I ask of my rune horde, what am I to witness today? And today, dear reader, is no light rune, Perthro - the rune of birthing, the mystery, the luck, the gamble, the risk. When we incarnate on the earth plane, isn't that what we do? We gamble with the cosmic oracles, the web of wyrd, we roll the dice and take our chances - as Gandalf said so eloquently, "There never was much hope. Just a fool's hope." So with much travail, we become, grasping to a notion that we're going to survive this and make gold out of lead - some of us walk a path riddled with spiritual landmines with only unseen HeroRATs to assist us along the way - especially those of us with the path of kintsugi.

Since I'm turned upside down, I thought I would do the same to a popular notion - that the narcissist triggers the empath - it's why I chose the scene from True Blood with Sookie and Bill from Season 1, Episode 1. Sookie, a Fae wrapped in the reality of a humble waitress, rushing to save a nearly immortal and extremely powerful being (who absolutely does not need her assistance in any way). She refers to herself as a "danger whore" throughout the series to explain why she becomes so entangled with the beings she does. She simply possesses a lock that those beings have a key to - she has the absolute capacity to heal that, which is actually what attracts those beings to her - it's her capacity.

I know a lot about that - the lock and key mechanisms of empathy and narcissism - and the capacity to heal. When one chooses to harness that capacity to heal, that's when the escape hatch begins to manifest for the empath, for you do not leave a narcissist, you escape them. I also turned to my academic training as a Chemist and the chirality of molecules.

Chirality can be defined as the potential of a molecule to occur in two asymmetric forms that are non-superimposable mirror images of each other without changing the atomic composition, atom-atom connections, or bond orders. This phenomenon generally occurs due to a difference in the three-dimensional orientation of four different substituents attached to a single central atom, creating what can be considered left-hand and right-hand versions of the same molecule. 

I would argue that truly the empath-narcissist are chiral forms - the mirror that holds the truth needs to be confronted and possibly even shattered -perhaps even from the inside. For that's what I think of with the Evil Queen and her enslaved daimon in the mirror - the imprisoned empath who is beheld to speak only the truth (in lyrical rhyme no less). If the mirror spirit could embrace and embody its capacity, would the mirror not naturally shatter, freeing it to escape the Evil Queen? For that's what the narcissist does, you see, it casts the illusion that there is no choice, no way, no path to increase your capacity such that you begin to heal, expand, and eventually escape. That's the entire gaslighting and projection routine they institute - it keeps the empath bound, locked, unable to expand in capacity thus unable to heal.

The first step to freedom is no easy one - it's self-realization oozing with self-love and compassion. We tend to forget often that we are eternal beings; it's the meat suits we motor around in, our avatars, that are finite. You are not broken, but you do need mending - and that's where you allow the gold to flow in. Surround yourself with love every day, all day, from the sun, the moon, the stars, the trees, the mountains, the lakes, rivers, and oceans. These beings have seen it all, they know how to heal those wounds you carry - gratitude is all one needs.

Westerners of European descent are often running off to those serving indigenous plant medicines, many times purely being taken advantage of. The pain is real, but it isn't you, and it most certainly doesn't have to define you or shape your reality. You can choose - I wrote about choice here https://feathers-in-the-snow.ghost.io/to-be-blind-pretending-not-to-see-2/. Listen, I know about avoidance, blindfolds, the whole bit - and I've written about that too. Even as I honored the Circle of 8, the tarot card of the 8 of swords - it too can embody the power of avoidance - the inability to face that funhouse of mirrors (swords) reflecting all sorts of distortions or even blinding sun rays right into your eyes. That card is so incredibly rich and complex - if you're navigating it - just know you are not alone.

But when you are strong enough, the blindfold comes off, and you step into a healing space - you increase your capacity and become powerful just like those elements of nature I mentioned above. You aren't separate from them, you know, you are them and they are you - which takes us back to chirality and the knowing that if you are the empath, the narcissist is you - its the flip of the reflection, the choice, the capacity that allows you a different way of being.

So does the narcissist have a choice? They can choose as well, I think - for them to do so seems insurmountable. Shame is just a bridge too far for them -  Many people don’t realize that it’s shame, not pride, that fuels the narcissist. Their secret feelings of inadequacy may even explain their tendency to end relationships when they feel exposed, insecure, or bad about themselves.

When I had a full moon burden burning in September 2024, I wrote the spirit of narcissism on a piece of paper, and boy did I feel fucking pious about that. It isn't fiery destruction that's required, it's the crucible of unconditional love and compassion. For me, that is the nauthiz rune. A rune symbolizing the crossroads where need and desire meet, and one must be chosen. Just as the Rolling Stones sang,

You can't always get what you want,
But if you try sometime you'll find
You get what you need

I leave you with Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen from Verona - Act 3 Scene 1

Valentine:

And why not death, rather than living torment?
To die is to be banished from myself,
 And Sylvia is myself; banished from her
 Is self from self—a deadly banishment.
 What light is light if Sylvia be not seen?
 What joy is joy if Sylvia be not by—
Unless it be to think that she is by
 And feed upon the shadow of perfection?

Except I be by Sylvia in the night,
 There is no music in the nightingale.
 Unless I look on Sylvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon.
 She is my essence, and I leave to be
 If I be not by her fair influence
 Fostered, illumined, cherished, kept alive.