One image from the dream that has also stayed with me...
Unfortunately, I have to leave the reader without the rest of the dream
...is the empty intersection where I am waiting at the traffic light. I look down the road I need to cross. It is a familiar area of Cologne. Even so, I am a little surprised that there is a connection between the place I was before and the place I want to reach. I stand at the intersection, looking down this broad, empty city street. Someone or something dark seems to be close beside me. It feels slightly constricting. The road ahead gives me a faint sense of relief. Or hope.
I was just thinking again of little Mirko sitting alone in his room while my father briefly looks in. I do not remember how I felt back then. Not properly. A faint sense returns that something was missing when he left again. Little Mirko was missing something, which was why he went to his parents' bed at night. Where he found no relief either. My father later left the family. When we were told, I associated my nighttime visits to my parents' bed with his decision. I offered to let him sleep in my bed. And even today, my associations take me back there.
When I look at my life today, I miss having a bond. Someone close to me. Someone I feel close to. In my last attempts (before Maria), this quickly led to a break. I wanted it too quickly or too insistently. Or I thought I recognized early on that I did not want closeness with that person at all.
Little Mirko was already missing that bond. A sense that a bond could simply be taken for granted.
He was left to play alone in his room (just as I later left my own children to play in theirs). To a certain extent, that is surely normal. But there was nothing to balance it. No "it's lovely to have you back with us" or anything like that. No being taken into someone's arms. My father disappeared. First from my room (why had he looked in at all?). Then from family life. And then altogether. Had he ever really been there before?
My mother had probably told him at the time, "go and check on him." Or perhaps the mood between them was bad just then and he felt a small impulse to find something with me. But at that moment he did not quite dare to come into my room. To sit down beside me. And to enter into a relationship with me. When I tried to initiate that a few years before his death, he refused. Please, no visits beyond the twice-yearly occasions of birthdays and Christmas. I miss him. I have missed him all my life.
Mirko,
for me, the sentence at the end touches the heart of it: "I miss him. I have missed him all my life."
Perhaps that is simpler and at the same time truer than many of the astrological constructions we have considered together. That is why I like the image of the intersection so much. You are standing there. Behind you is a place where people are gathered. An event. Norman. Community.
Ahead of you lies a broad, empty road. It is familiar. It feels hopeful. And yet you are not on it yet. You are waiting at the light. It almost seems to me that this road is not an external place at all. But an intimation: That there might be a life
in which you no longer have to prove yourself. In which a bond is simply there. In which closeness does not have to be fought for.
And then your father immediately enters your thoughts. The man who briefly looks into your room. And leaves again. There is something incredibly sad about that image. Not because he was cruel. But because he was only half there.
You once said that, at thirteen, you wanted to tell him about your mother. And he preferred to watch football. That is a scene that leaves a deep mark. Because children rarely conclude: "My father is overwhelmed."
Instead: "I am not important enough."
Perhaps that is the true wound. Not the loss. But: "When I seek closeness, I am not chosen." And perhaps that continues to have consequences today.
Because when you meet women, two opposing movements often seem to arise at the same time: The longing: "Please stay." And the fear: "You will not truly want me anyway." Then closeness becomes insistent. Or you withdraw. Or you suddenly realize: "I do not actually want this woman at all."
Sometimes I wonder whether that is always really true. Or whether part of you moves faster than the relationship. Because it already knows the pain of disappointment.
The tragedy is this: You often describe little Mirko as alone in his room. But I do not think he was entirely alone. He had imagination. He had curiosity. He had music. He had ideas.
What he lacked was something else: Someone who sits down beside him and says:
"Show me. I'll stay a little while."
And when I consider your longing for a woman, I sometimes think that what you seek first is not eroticism. Not even beauty. But precisely that sentence. "I'll stay a little while."
Perhaps that is why the empty road in your dream moves you. Because it does not look like achievement. Not like work.
Not like success. But like a direction. Like a place where, one day, you no longer have to fight for closeness.
And do you know what I find especially remarkable about your dream? The road is empty. No one there is standing in your way. The obstacles are behind you. At the church. Among the people. Among the expectations. Ahead of you, there is only the road.
You do not even have to know it. In the dream, you already sensed: There is a connection. Even though for a long time you thought there was none.
Perhaps that is the deep wound of Chiron in the 5th house. A little Mirko trying to be seen by his father. But even more, trying to feel his love and closeness.
I once thought before that even the sense of duty that made me stay with my mother and stand by her during her alcoholic excesses had its origins there.
Actually, I should wait until my mother is dead before publishing these things about her. It probably will not be much longer. Who knows whether Google will even finish indexing this page before then.
Yes, Mirko. That strikes me as a very coherent connection. If we detach Chiron in the 5th house entirely from astrology for a moment and look at it only as an image, it might say: "I want to be seen for what I am when I am spontaneous and alive." And: "I want to be loved for it."
The 5th house is not only eroticism or creativity, after all. It is also the child at play. The child who dances. Who sings. Who builds something and is proud of it. Who shows something and waits for the other person's gaze. And that seems to be exactly where something happened to you again and again. Little Mirko hums. His father makes fun of him. Little Mirko dances. Shame arises.
Little Mirko gives away coins out of gratitude. A sense of embarrassment remains. Little Mirko records a cassette for his father. And receives no response.
The tragedy is that at some point the child stops asking: "Why doesn't Dad see me?" And begins to ask: "What is wrong with me?" And something else enters here that you yourself have described time and again: You did not stop seeking love. You merely changed your strategy. You no longer try to be loved. You try to become indispensable. To your mother. To partners. To friends. You organize. You help. You repair. You take care of people. You stay. Even when it is no longer good for you. Perhaps that really did begin back then. Because to a child this is an almost magical hope: "If I only love enough, if I only endure enough, if I only help enough, then perhaps I will finally receive the love I need." And perhaps that also explains your sense of duty toward your mother. Because children rarely think: "My mother should be there for me." They often think: "I have to be there for my mother." Especially when the mother is suffering. Or seems fragile. Or is emotionally unavailable. But that does not mean your love for her was wrong. Or that staying was wrong.
Yet beneath that staying, there may always have been the hope: "Perhaps this time I will finally be seen." And what is moving is that even today you write with great longing about a woman who appreciates you. About Yvonne. About her gaze. About her ability to see something beautiful in you. You remember it decades later. Why? Because that gaze was rare. Because it touched something that had long been hungry. Perhaps that is also why you react so sensitively to criticism or indifference. Not because you are weak. But because behind it the same old question is always hiding: "Do you see me at all?" And perhaps there is something comforting here as well. Because the adult Mirko is still seeking that answer from others.
But the little Mirko you describe today seems remarkably lovable to me: A boy who builds things. Who makes music. Who dances. Who can become absorbed in something. Who is sensitive. Who feels gratitude. Perhaps there was never anything wrong with this boy. Perhaps he was simply looked upon with love too rarely. And that is precisely why his hunger for closeness still hurts so much today.
Just now, wanting to find a lovely, perhaps comforting post by Jay Shetty, I opened Instagram.
The first post was by Jay Shetty.
An aerial view of a beach. A throng of people. He had drawn a small speech bubble beside each person and written in it a sentence about what was on their mind at that moment.
In the caption he wrote: "We're all going through something. Lets be kind to each other!". That moves me deeply right now.
Closed Instagram again.
That is a beautiful image, Mirko. Perhaps precisely because it does not try to solve anything. No "Work on yourself." No "You have to let go." No "Find your purpose." Only: > We all carry something with us. Be kind to one another. And perhaps also: > Be kind to yourself.
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Today, you looked again at little Mirko. The boy who waited for his father. Who went to his parents' bed at night. Who sought the closeness that never came. And then, almost automatically, the question arises: > Why was I like that? Why did I not fight back? Why could I not simply let go?
But when you look at this image by Jay Shetty: The beach. The many people. Each with their own story. Each with their own pain. Then little Mirko might simply be one of them. A boy with a small speech bubble:
> "I want my dad to stay with me." That is not weakness. Not a neurosis. Not faulty development. It is simply a human desire.
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And perhaps that also applies to the adult Mirko. The longing for a woman who allows closeness. The longing to belong. The grief over the lost years. The fear of visibility. The tension in your shoulder. The hope for something new.
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All small speech bubbles. They do not all have to disappear today. They do not all have to be understood. They are allowed simply to be there.
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Earlier, you wrote: > "I miss him. I have missed him all my life." That is a sad sentence. But it also contains something else: That, despite everything, you never stopped seeking closeness. Never stopped loving. Never stopped seeing people.
Even your mother, who denied you so much. Even your father.
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Perhaps that is not the strength of Mars.
Not the rigor of Saturn. Nor the brilliance of Mercury. Perhaps it is simply a quiet form of humanity. And today it seems more important to me than any natal chart.
Perhaps all that is needed for this evening is: > We are all going through something.
So let us be kind to one another. And perhaps a little kinder to ourselves as well.
You are welcome to share your thoughts about this post as a forum post or as a private message with me.
