This is vintage blogging and I mean, it dates back to 2001! I’m going to leave it unedited because I like my voice back then. I also still agree with myself!
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This is for people who have a profoundly screwed up or difficult life. It’s something I’ve learned that maybe you can use.
About ten years ago, my sister and I were in intensive psychotherapy. As individuals I mean, but at the same time. The situation was egregious by anyone standards and as it turned out, we both spent more than three years in weekly session.
Now during this time people felt sorry for us. Well, more specifically, they felt sorry for my sister. By nature of some phenomenon, I almost never inspire sympathy in people. This is not important to the story, just an interesting bit. My sister, target of so many people’s pity made some astute observations.
“They keep telling me how sorry they are for me. They cry for me, and I keep telling them to feel sorry for themselves. We’re lucky that our problems are profound enough to force us to deal with them. I wouldn’t want their life for shit!”
She felt that the people who were so full of pity for her were screwed up themselves. Some of them, pathetically so. They were living crippled lives to whatever degree, but their problems were not acute enough to force creative action.
Consequently they were able to spend their lives pointing a people like us as people having obvious difficulty, while ignoring their own problems. They looked at us and felt sorry for our plight. The fact that we needed therapy. We looked at them and felt sorry right back.
Now what happens over time, is my sister and I work things through. We really puke it up because we just don’t have a choice. Pluto was in Scorpio. It was time. So we get in there. We get dirty. We get filthy even and then we go on to live rich, enhanced lives.
The people who pitied us, projected their problems on to us, did nothing, and they have seen their lives degrade from the inside out. Obviously, this is the kind of thing accrues interest (or debt) over time.
This is baffling to them because they are unhappy, but unable to identify that they have a problem. It has always been other people with the problem and my point, as I indicated up front, is that sometimes it is better to have a problem, even a BIG STINKIN’ HUGE problem. If this is you, take heart.
The astrology?
Trines are considered easy aspects. Spots in your life that just flow. People just starting to learn astrology are taught that trines are good and squares are bad, but as you study more people and more charts, you find example after example of people with difficult charts who excel, because they have to. Because there is an acute spot, or even a majority of a life, that cannot be ignored.
Compare it to a chart of trines. Some astrologers call them “lazy”. Granted, many of these astrologers may lack trines in their chart and they may have bias, but don’t miss the point.
If your life appears to work well (enough) – there are (enough) things that come easy to you, then this leaves you the option to dissociate yourself from parts of your psyche, parts of your character, that are more dark and troublesome.
“I am okay ———> They need therapy.”
The mother of all the trines, is the Grand Trine. A Grand Trine is made up of three planets in one of the elements (earth, fire, air, water) that provide easy support to each other. If you have one of these in your chart, a novice astrologer may tell you that it the most desirable configuration you could buy. Lucky you! A more experienced astrologer would tell you that the best is potentially the worse, in equal proportion, primarily for the reasons I just outlined.
If you take a chart as a whole (and you should) then the grand trine in the chart would be like someone heart and lungs working together without impediment. Or you could compare a person who is physically beautiful. This gives that person a choice to focus there, right? Trouble is, it’s the cancer in the bowel that kills them.
Bowel?
What bowel?
If you have major problems, your odds of pulling out are excellent, as long as you are willing to pull. What you are not going to be able to do, is live a flaccid life. You only need to act, because the energy is there. It constellates around your, otherwise you would not have an acute problem in the first place.
What I mean is your curse is your gift in exact proportion. You’ve an abundance of energy to use in anyway you choose to, and you are MORE likely to kick butt than the person who seemingly has it easy.
What you are not going to be able to do is avoid living a dynamic life and for that, you can thank your lucky stars. A lot of this has to do with redefining what is desirable in life. We think that we want a cake walk through our lives, when in reality, nothing could be more perfectly killing than that.
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This was written six years later. It links to a video where I talk more about this phenomenon.
People Who Pity Others, Saturn, Neptune and The Hall Of Mirrors
Do you find yourself spending a lot of time analyzing others?
Do you feel you have problems, but maybe not so bad you need to work on them?
Or did you get you butt kicked so bad, you had no choice but to examine your life?
I’ll take Door 3…Lots of real problems from time to time, including potentially deadly health problems, but a rich and fulfilled life overall, and feel that I have been a positive influence in many lives…Carpe Diem..never miss a chance to have an adventure, or to help someone, especially kids….
My chart is overrun with trines, one astrologer said “You must have had an easy life!”. I almost hung up on her. The signs of trouble are there but more subtle. North node in the 12th house. Sun square moon. Saturn and Chiron retrograde in the 11th house. Literally the worst thing I can say to someone is “I hope when you die you come back and have MY LIFE”, I’ve only said it twice.
Three planets in one sign is a stellium not a grand trine I think.
I have a grand trine, yes. In water, it flows. Then I have a great big t-square jarring from the pluto in the GT. Pleasure/Pain. Expansion/Restriction. Constant. 🧡
I can’t remember who said it in here, was it Satori? Midara? But something around grand trines potentially presenting as a sealed unit, self sufficient, and that hit home for me. Sorting out my own stuff, lack of (much) need for others, others not seeing me as someone needing or deserving of sympathy.
Thanks for this post, Elsa! It spoke to me. 🙏
I have a dynamic life – with Scorpio rising, 4 squares in the chart and all outers dominant in some way – that quiet peaceful existence only exists in my dreams, literally. I might get a breath or two between battles but soon enough I will have to armour up and go again. This is the “adventure” my soul has chosen for this earthly incarnation.
As for projection, people would have to get close enough to do that. Whatever they think of me, is not my concern unless they insist on bringing it to my attention.
My chart is nothing but red lines. Nuff said.
Very dynamic life here. A cardinal T square.Moon in Capricorn,Sun in Cancer.. cold mother,absent father (times two, rejected by bio Dad AND step dad..)..as a young woman, I had severe migraine headaches about 6 times a month that made life sometimes very painful and I had to learn to roll with all that…and it all just motivated me,.I was blessed with a quick mind,did well in school, just moved out at age 17, got married at 19 when my Knight in shining armour appeared (I have Saturn conjunctNeptune in Libra in 7th!) and it “took” I am still married to him 50 years later.. With a Pisces rising,I found spirituality,meditation and astrology early on, around age 15, and it gave meaning to my experiences..I started reading charts for others at age 22.. I experience life through the lens of astrological cycles, spirit and gratitude.. Most of my life, just when I think things are on an easy roll, a major life challenge will appear, but it usually has motivated me to produce MORE..went to nursing school later in life during a Saturn transit.. that change me in many ways (for the good).. got into student debt with husband so he could become a chiropractor, we paid all that debt off quickly.. he developed a great career as a healer.. and we worked together for a time.. (I always had 2-3 jobs,nursing,astrologer and office manager)— I also became a bit of an artist and enjoy losing myself (Pisces rising) in watercolor and collage art..alone in my studio…I HAD to make it on my own (with my husband’s partnership) and so I did..and I continue to do so..I am going through Saturn in 12 right now.. but I am used to “hard..” THIS kind of hard (sick grown son) has been the worst challenge yet, but I am doing ok.No pity please!! I left an art group I belonged to, when the members,all bleeding hearts,began to pity me and focus on the losses they saw in me, not the strengths..I can’t take that!! I don’t want to be a part of any “walking wounded” club thank you! I had some work to do on myself to do this part of my life, and , I am doing it. What’s the option?? ? I don’t know a life of ease or being “given” stuff.I have had to work hard for every inch.But I do feel a sense of accomplishment, and especially after 2020- current times, am pretty proud to still be standing, and on some days,even thriving! I am 70.I have seen and done a lot.And it ain’t over till it’s over!!
Over the years, you’ve helped me recognize how I can be a more kind human being by taking responsibility for my own problems instead of trying to help other people as a sort of cop-out. Not that helping people isn’t important… but there’s a massive difference between true generosity, and acts of kindness that serve more as form of self-validation. Regardless of which social strata we were born into, we can all see that life on Earth is not fair by any stretch. What we choose to do with that information has potential to change everything.
Thank you, Elsa, for communicating this. You have delivered a solid message with your brilliant writing. I just love your perspective and appreciate so much your willingness to share it.
I admire people who can identify that they have issues to work through, and courageously take the next step to work hard, alongside a psychotherapist. Every single human being at different points in their lifespan would greatly benefit by talking things through with a professional.
I have always found that unfortunately, the people with the greatest problems/psychopathology, tend to lack the self awareness required to seek help. This is particularly common amongst people with undiagnosed personality disorders.
Consequently, I’ve always been more concerned with those who don’t seek therapy.
I couldn’t agree more!my chart is a nightmare: t-square, pluto-saturn conjunction in 4H, a yod, multiple oppositions and inconjunctions (see-saw chart), moon in Scorpio and only one trine from Neptune to my sun. when I hit a low point in my life, suffering so much, I had to dig deep within me to find out why. what was going so wrong with me. only once I realised what my flaws are was i able to improve. it’s true, trines usually are counter productive for the evolution of the soul: life is easy so why change?
I do admire grit. Many years ago I knew two lovely very feminine Libra women both of whom had charts full of sextiles and trines and no squares, inconjuncts etc. Highly intuitive victims with no courage, unable to access their masculine or express anger as though Mars was missing from their charts. This taught me that without those squares etc we lack backbone. In a word they were ultra feminine, neurotic and rather helpless and both had super angry husbands. I was an astrology student at the time and at an Australian workshop of visiting Astro cartography guru Jim Lewis ( who was soon to be hit by a CAR while crossing MILITARY Road while on his MARS line in Neutral Bay Australia) said “Raise your hand if you could kill if you HAD to?” I could, a few others could. The point he was making was could we access our Mars or were others having to act it out for us? Perhaps the husbands of those two gentle ladies lived out a double dose…their own and their wife’s Mars energy. As a psychotherapist, sometimes I take a sneal peek to see what a client’s Mars wants of them. The juggling of my own two energies masculine Mars and feminine Venus are 27 Aquarius Mars who wants to jump out of planes squaring 28 Venus Taurus in the 4th who wants to put on an apron and make marmalade. I keep both satisfied most of the time though Venus is dominating as I grow older. Presently have Pluto on the ascendant and feel like a spineless jellyfish! Seeking a therapist. We can get at a lot of buried dross at a time like this.
I know this sounds cliche but “where there’s no struggle, there’s no strength”. This is my personal experience with myself and others over the years.
The most successful people in my circle have squares galore. To be in their presence feels energising. Squares involving mars and the sun, or mars-Pluto, are what I call kick ass aspects. I mean this in a positive way. I have seen this energy directed constructively in sports stars, entrepreneurs, surgeons and lawyers.
Hard squares/oppositions with Saturn can create very hardworking, resilient and disciplined individuals. They have what it takes to reach the top if they choose.
Of course, people may not always use their energies wisely, but it’s nice to know that if they want to embrace it positively, they can!