I recently heard that the energies we’ll be dealing with in this coming month (Feb. of ’17) relate to our issues with co-dependent tendencies. It made me curious to know more about how this may play out in my life. I’ve always been the reverse of the co-dependent. I’ve been fiercely independent…up until recently anyway when life decided to give me an opportunity to experience new levels of dependence as an expatriate.
I grew up in a home with two male alcoholics, so I am all too familiar with what co-dependency actually looks like. I’ve since spent my life rigorously defending myself from living out the self-sacrificing womanhood I was demonstrated growing up. But, I have the feeling that my thoughts on this topic are as outdated as the late John Bradshaw (sorry, John).
So, instead of indulge in a bunch of stuff that’s already been written elsewhere about the topic, I thought I would consult something that might give me a more up-to-date perspective…my Devas of Creation deck!
Before I share the results, I think it is necessary to at least define the relevant terms. So bear with me while I share the following three definitions. In everyone’s life, a tension plays out along the dependency continuum in the various realms of daily life…health, finances, work, friendships, etc. Whether it is you or the other displaying an aspect, it is helpful to have some awareness of the dynamics. If you want to know more, you’ll have to do a little research.
Dependency: the heart of any relationship. It is a human necessity to rely on and interact with others.
Co-dependency: reliance on “other” to such an extent that one relinquishes inner authority and self-esteem to maintain the status quo of the relationship. It can also be needing the other to need us, to everyone’s detriment.
Interdependency: the formation of healthy partnerships and connections. It’s mutual benefit without one-sided sacrifice. Each person enters a symbiosis with the other to utilize one another’s strengths and resources but without losing self- sufficiency.
Now that that is out of the way, on to the reading.
I asked the deck for examples of healthy and unhealthy dependency. I shuffled, cut the deck twice, and selected three cards for each question. The results felt profound, at least to me.
What We Can and Should Rely Upon
Spirit:
We are dependent on the blueprint of life and its fundamental elements: space, water, earth, air, and fire. We belong to Spirit. We are, as the cliche goes, a spiritual being having a human experience. We cannot separate ourselves from this, no matter how vehemently we may try…or believe it to be that we are. In realizing this, we free ourselves from so much unnecessary suffering. It’s understanding that we are never not held by Spirit.
Mineral Kingdom:
Like the various minerals of the earth, we are dependent on certain conditions to be just so in order to allow our growth and development. Spirit is what provides everything we need in it’s time, not ours. And like the countless types of minerals that come from our earth, each of us is as unique, able to flourish when we know who and what we are. We are mistaken when we “try” to be anything other than what we are in the moment. We are dependent on the natural timing of evolution; it’s nothing we can force. And when we impose our structure upon others, we deprive ourselves of the gifts they came to provide us.
Venus:
We are dependent on the perceptions and experiential phenomena of life that influences our emotions, the physical realms, and the elemental realms. As defined in the terms above, relationship and therefore dependency is necessary, but what Venus can teach us if we listen is that love is not personal. It is an impersonal force that is working upon us and in us constantly. Without it, our lives would be devoid of joy and the lightness of being. Love is what makes it all worthwhile, but our experience of it must come from inside rather than external sources. This is typical human confusion, to depend on love outside of ourselves.
What We Mistakenly Rely Upon
Spacetime:
We are codependent with our sense of our physical self and physical reality as the ultimate reality. Yes, we are physical beings. We live in a 3D reality. But we are unhealthily attached to this being the only reality. We dismiss what can’t be seen or proven, often contrary to our own experience of it. This attachment to space and time results in a fear of death and loss. And as the definition of codependency states, we sacrifice a great deal of our power to the “almighty material”. We rely on material goods for our sense of worth, satisfaction, and comfort. We use it all as a measure of success only to discover we can’t take it with us the moment death arrives.
Desert:
This continues and reasserts the theme of the spacetime card. Like the person who bears unresolved issues of codependency through overcompensation, proving how independent and useful they are, this card shows us how we fight what we know to be necessary to survive and thrive spiritually. As stated in spacetime, we identify with our riches and comforts (or lack of them). We alternate between our desire for the familiar and the novel, creating an inner desert by seeking everywhere but inside…where things are too unknown. Ironically, we each need to spend our time in the desert in order to overcome our ideas that there is anything lacking in life. Our co-dependency on “desert mentality” is the doorway to our interdependence with it.
Atom:
Again, this card reiterates our codependency on the physical, on matter, on “the old physics”. We need to open our minds and embrace the power of thought to alter reality, of the placebo to heal, of waves to be particles, and of the unknown to hold unlimited potential. We are so codependent on the contracts we’ve signed to our constructs; they have become our prison. But our constructs have no more substance than dreams. Yet the way it’s been done is the way it has continued. Why are we creating the same things over and over again? Where is our creativity? The answer rests once more with Spirit, in the space between, the source of our inspiration, if we are brave enough to express that which it creates in us.
