I'm having the most interesting experience of awareness, today especially, and just checked my chart and transits. I thought it might have something to do with my natal Saturn in Cancer -and some relation, I'm sure to the recent eclipse- but I'm really not sure. (I also see that Saturn is *on* my natal Pluto in Libra so maybe that's part of it?) Anyway, the experience is of recognizing my own flaws via experiencing other possible expressions in other people. It's hard to explain concisely but what's been happening, mostly, is my experience with people at school has been opening my eyes to how I've handled similar situations in the past, how I do now and where I still am working on myself.
So here's what I'm seeing a learning (and believe me, it does not come easy to see these things about myself). My teachers are amazing. They're very patient and kind and nurturing and seem to detect who needs encouragement the most and they deliver it sometimes firmly but always with kindness and a lot of patience. It's been really surprising to me to be around young adults with so much caring in their leadership styles. There have been times when I'm not sure how I would have handled a situation, such as someone being somewhat disruptive or if their tone of voice and choice of words seems to convey a slight attitude. In each of these situations I've watched these various teachers respond in the most level headed manner. Calm, pleasant, logical. Each time it happens I'm aware of what my own impulse might have been and I'm impressed by the mastery with which they handle themselves. At first I thought, this is what I think because I've been exposed to people in authority who are so much different and could not be described as nurturing at all -and I think that's certainly part of it. But today I thought very clearly, in response to the experience of the teacher: this is patience and kindness that I have been lacking in the past. It feels both amazing and terrible to identify in myself the lack of qualities that I feel are incredibly important to all relationships. And ofcourse I can console myself by saying that there's only so much you can achieve when you're in an environment that's wrong for you, but I'm now realizing that as I repair the damage in myself I have to learn entirely new ways of handling myself -ways that are beyond my known vocabulary- and it's a bit frightening to see all the things I'm not sure I know how to do.