Co-dependence or interdependence?

This coming week* we come under the influence of a very animalistic archetypal energy, in every sense of the word. This is the archetype of the wonderful animal whispers such as Cesar Milan. It is the energy of the shaman, who travels between worlds. This week offers us the opportunity to relate to the rest of creation through our interconnected sensitivity as fellow nature beings, communing with devas, water and tree spirits, the entire universe of Gaia.

I prefer to listen

My own experiences with contacting other worlds in nature are limited to visiting the wonderful shamanic home of Roelien de Lange, whose farm near Zutphen in the Netherlands offers a safe ‘home’ to all nature beings, including humans. Although I experienced a true childlike glee over the fact that my dowsing rod did indeed do a jig in my hands, with no involvement from myself, as far as the tree spirits were concerned, I could only see them through the faces of the people around me who were truly communicating with something beyond my field of sensitivity.

However, this energy is also about co-dependence and the interconnectedness of all things. And so let me tell you a little about my dog. Our dog Jessie was so wise that we all said her next trip back into being would be as a human. She was sensitive and sensible and she always knew what was going on in ‘her’ family. She was totally dependent on us, and in return she gave us her total dedication and loyalty. You could say she played the role of the co-dependent in our relationship. I also like having plants around the house, that occasionally need some extra plant food, something I tend to forget. In fact, you might say that they are even more dependent on me than Jessie ever was. Because if she needed to protest, at being alone at home for too long, for example, then she would pick a shoe, chew it a little, and demonstratively leave it on our bed. Bigger protests involved more shoes, but never a pair. I told you she was smart!

Do you behave like a plant or a Jessie?

At least Jessie could show her dissatisfaction with her shoe protests, but my poor spider plant can’t pick up her roots and move in with the neighbours. And sometimes, in our close relationships, be they intimate or work-related, we also behave like a plant, or like a Jessie. We might protest, but we don’t leave. And yet we’re freer than Jessie or my spider plant. Co-dependence, the shadow energy of this week’s archetype, revolves around the way we deal with our needs, and our inability to break free from a relationship because we have given away our power to another, hoping we will get our needs met, or in a false belief that the other, or yourself, will not survive a parting of ways. Or we’re blind to finding ways within the relationship, where you do not act as one another’s emotional, spiritual or psychological petrol tank.

At the collective level we see the same projected need, in allegiances to a political party, the green movement, or a religion, feeding our need for meaning in the world. In another context we see how we, the western world, have locked the developing countries into a co-dependent relationship, while at the same time, trying to cultivate the interdependence of nations, in institutions such as the EU and the UN. Strong in our own strength, not dependent on the other, but certainly, especially in these times of global warming, needing to find a way of working together.

The Gift of Sensitivity

Here you see the progression from co-dependence, via independence, to interdependence, which is the foundation for this sensitivity. And because the 19th hexagram that underlies this archetype is so strongly connected to the earth, it may be obvious that this word indicated a ‘sensitivity’ to the interdependence of all aspects of Gaia, seen and unseen, proven and unproven. Now, you may think independence is already a step in the right direction, and in some way, it is, especially if you speak to the Brexiteers, but actually, it can be a regressive step. It can lead to an attitude of separation from everything that connects us, whether we acknowledge it or not. So you could argue that independence, at its most isolating, is the opposite of co-dependence, not its cure. Richard Rudd, the father of the Gene Keys system, says with some irony that these two extremes, needy and isolating, fit extremely well together in a particularly dysfunctional relationship. You can only free yourself from this needy dance if you understand that our interdependent union with everything in creation, including, and perhaps especially our indwelling spirit or godliness, will always, and has always, provided us with everything we might ever need.

Different types of sacrifice

The highest spiritual essence of this key is connected to sacrifice, but at the shadow level of this archetype it becomes corrupted into a kind of poor-me sacrifice. People who live in a co-dependent relationship, and be honest, we all do to some extent, sacrifice pieces of themselves to make the other person happy. The classic example is the partner of an alcoholic who, out of a misguided love, temporarily puts his or her own needs on the backburner, to ‘help’ the other, thus enabling the wounding behaviour that ensues. At the fear frequency that always feeds the shadow aspect, you consciously or unconsciously believe you need the other person to survive or you think that the other person will not survive without you.

That gift of sensitivity, the awareness of the interdependence of all creation, is what people like Cesar Milan and Roelien de Lange tap into, to break away from the illusionary reality of the Maya that is determined and restricted by our five senses. There is so much more. Even though I can’t see the tree spirits winking at me, I know they are there, and see others ‘seeing’ them. Such people feel the pranic energy flows, the tapestry of the living bioenergy that connects all beings.

That is why this energy also predicts the rise and the fall of organised religion. Until we discover and accept the reality that we all carry a spark of the divine within us, that our true identity is not the ego driven spacesuit that we travel around in, with all its needs, lusts, wants, desires and insecurities, we will continue to live on the dualistic seesaw of co-dependent religiosity, and independent god-is-deadness. And so here we also see the double role of independence. Where before we prayed to a whole pantheon of Gods for the fertility of our soil, our women and our cattle, we now grow meat in a laboratory and make babies in a tube. We don’t think we need God anymore and we throw away the divine baby with the bath water. We throw ourselves away.

True sacrifice knows no agenda. Doesn’t need a pat on the back. Think of the myth of the Norse god Odin, who was hung upside down from Ydris, the world tree, to acquire the secret of the runes for humanity. Think of the crucified man Jesus, whose ultimate obedience to his inner voice of God showed us the way to be reconciled to our own inability to live from our highest/deepest, rather than our basest self. A true spiritual quest demands the ultimate sacrifice of our little self’s false belief in its own independence, so that it can become a useful tool that works hand in hand with the sensitivity of the highest levels of consciousness. Like the moon that is fully lit up by the light of the sun!

So, this week we all get to experience the pain of co-dependence, and the freedom from this dance in the loving heartfelt frequency of sensitivity and interdependence. Notice how the themes pop up in your own life this week, as well as in the headlines. And take a dowsing rod and see if you too can ride on the energy currents of the animal whisperers.

We are all responsible for our own food, be it emotional, spiritual or a nice plate of fish and chips. We have to stop using our fellow humans and other animals as petrol pumps for our own flagging self-worth. An interdependent relationship between two people, a relationship that builds on sensitivity, is like a mirror that shows you exactly where you still leak bits of dependency and where the other helps you to heal the leak. You don’t shove your leaks in their shoes. You just don’t!

And if we can be such loving, active mirrors for one another, we help the other to grow their inner strength, instead of boosting our own lack of self-worth through the need of another.

On this frequency there is no sacrifice, because we are all connected. My sacrifice is nothing but a unique gift to myself. It took me years before I began to ‘get’ the familiar mantra from relationship therapy: I don’t love you because I need you, but I need you because I love you. And even that is but a weak reflection of the fabric of the divine love that unites all of Gaia in one living being.

So have fun with your illusions around your own co-dependence or independence. Open up your senses and feel into this all-encompassing fabric of love. Stop being afraid. Let the other go. You are already held in a deep current of love. In the coming days we will all be animal whispers, and on a quiet morning, where the night frost still colours the grass white, imagine the fairies and the devas dancing in the morning sun. And who knows, they might even reveal themselves to you!

Have a wonderful, whispering week.

* I’ve been working with Human Design and Gene Keys, an offshoot, for a number of years now, and for the next twelve months I will be making a blogging journey through the HD calendar as we swerve around the Wheel of Samsara. Whether you ‘believe’ in the influence of the planets on our daily lives or not doesn’t matter, as each theme applies to the human condition and is interesting enough in its own right.