I was talking to satori about someone’s rotten behavior in her life and told her I understood because I’d acted that way myself. I explained that I thought it was due my 8th house. , I am so steeped in the shadow, I can relate to most anything. I am just not that separated from heinous things, be they thoughts or actions. I understand lower drives because I have them myself and sometimes they get loose!
If you are a rotten person doing rotten things, I think you can stop but this requires you to become conscious which is something most people resist. They’re innocent, the other is not. They’re high-minded and the other is not. If this is your bead and you won’t step off it… well then this is your bead and you won’t step off it. But if you will step off it, anything is possible.
I think having a wide range of experience helps me in consulting. I am never that shocked or horrified because if I’ve not done the horrible thing myself, I have probably thought about it or otherwise brushed up against it. I’m just comfortable in the pit, I don’t know how else to put it.
I am comfortable there but not comfortable staying there. I pine to be good and to be of good service which was something I could never understand until, Liz Greene wrote her excellent text, The Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption
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I don’t think I will ever get of the the dirty grave where I reside but I can get many of you out and that’s saying something.
Elsa, this really speaks to me. I am in touch with my baser tendencies; sometimes this is a blessing, other times a burden. It’s taken a lot for me to understand that the light and dark that I have inside of me are struggling with each other not for dominance, but to create the dynamic tension that I need to maintain balance. Thank you for posting this.
HA HA
I LOVE this –
Especially getting in trouble for saying/being impulsive and over-the-top, which IS rotten when someone thinks they are trying to help you out and you can’t control yourself
I have Jupiter in the 8th?
@Elsa, Frog here, *looks embarrassed* well, you really helped me out on this one last year, if you remember…The good news is that I ate humble pie and continue to pine to be good 😉
Baby stepping out of the dirty grave backwards… so as not to forget. 😉
I just got that book and am reading it now.
TreeFrog, I remember. You are an unforgettable type. 🙂
I know I have quite a tendency to be an opportunist and have to watch my motives. My sister can be the same so we can talk to each other about this.
I don’t know if we are more opportunistic than other people or just more aware of it. Neither of us lives the unexamined life…that would be impossible being raised by our mother.
That book looks awesome. Amazon let me flip through the first few pages. But the CG Jung analysis in the table of contents is really what caught my eye. Thanks for bringing it up. I’ll probably be gettin it. I’d love to understand more about my Neptune. I think I’ve read all 100 posts you have written about Neptune conjunct MC.
think the service and sacrifice are part of the climbing out. one’s gonna’ keep falling in. life is full of traps we haven’t prepared for. the trick is to know how to get out again. and again. and again. and to not be so lost in there….
some of the older legends of persephone say that she chose to go to the underworld to tend to the spirits of hades. she decided to stay in the dark because she was needed there.
i kinda like that idea better.
What beautiful self-awareness and honesty, Elsa. There are times when I get on my own nerves badly, and one of my worst qualities–something I’ve struggled with as long as I’ve known about my Pluto–is that of forming resentments and grievances and chewing on them over and over.
I’ve prayed over it endlessly, used so many flower essences and other healing tools, and worked so hard on it, but it will still take hold if I allow it. All I can say for myself is that I have almost zero tolerance for it–yank myself out of that rut in very short order when I recognize it.
And, most importantly, I have learned not to perpetrate it on others.
Thanks for inviting people to examine themselves in this way. Donna
Thank you, Donna. 🙂
@Donna, I know what you mean. In my time I have worked on the darkside of my nature with viles by the dozens calming or balancing conflict that was like an itch that I couldn’t scratch. I started coming here to ElsaElsa at the bottom of a long down hill slide. Neptune was washing out all the sand castles and something vital was gotta change.
My 8th house is also a very heavily occupied place, death and repentention/redemption has become something I understand with decades of effort. Uranus in Aries has been the fire needed to see my roots. Some of ’em are rotten and that’s the truth. Service to others without expecting worship …that Pluto in Leo looked at later in life … Deep exploration, dirty stuff but worth the effort I think.
That’s so interesting about Uranus in Aries and roots, Mokihana. The family member I detested and resented most was my Aunt Bernadine, who has become a character on my blog (“Mean Aunt Bernadine”) The other day, for some strange reason, I was moved to Google her, and I ran across her obituary online. Weird!
And it’s made me think a lot about her and those darker family patterns I have resented so. She’s gone, like a vulture that was always sitting on my shoulder.
You get used to the claw marks, you know. It’s odd not having that presence…but freeing, like my chest opening up so I can breathe better. Donna