We’re having our hail damaged roof replaced. I was standing in the front yard with the highly personable President of the roofing company when someone drove by in marked car (not police). He made a remark about seeing these people around town. “None of them are happy,” he said. “They’re all miserable. I’ve yet to see one of them smile, ever.”
“Now that you mention it,” I said. ‘You’re right.”
It’s a day later and it crossed my mind that most people are unhappy because they want something that doesn’t even exist. The perfect marriage for example. The perfect vacation.
This seems a Virgo/Pisces axis phenomena to me and while I admit I just made that up, I can also back it up. And at least I have original ideas, eh?
Back in 2007, I made a video about how I felt that all problems were resolved in the 12th house. I can’t remember what I said (and refuse to watch my old videos) but I must have confused (and interested) people because I wound up making two more videos on the topic (which I am also not going to watch).
In whatever case, I think people are unhappy because they fail to transcend. They get to the 12th house and they just can’t do it.
Why do you think people are unhappy?
Very interesting. I actually totally got the first video and then part 2 threw me a little. I have Mars in the 12th (Scorpio) so I do resolve things ultimately by fighting but it’s often very intense and on a psychic level. With the 2nd video I totally get the stages of life thing but if 12th house is about letting go, I’m not sure my Scorpio Mars can ever do that????
“…but if 12th house is about letting go, I’m not sure my Scorpio Mars can ever do that????”.
One day you’ll die and that’ll do it. 🙂
Also I think there are 3 vids. I searched this and there were 3.
See this is the stuff I quit doing. It’s too high maintenance because no one knows what I’m talking about. 🙂 I have come to the conclusion I should just shut up until someone recognizes me and starts a real conversation.
Not necessarily Elsa. I have threatened many a people that when I die I will come back to haunt them! Ha! 😉
Found the 3rd video. Totally get the framework. I guess I need to think more about how a Mars archetype lets go. Sounds like a total contradiction but I’m sure I’m only looking at one manifestation of that archetype. Anyway, food for thought . . . .
Hmm… I could only see the first video; interesting stuff! My 12th house is empty, so I’m guessing the process can only be triggered by transit. Saturn has been trekking through it for a while now and is creeping up on my ascendant. Not the most depressing transit I’ve ever had but I do feel as ‘though everything in my life has to change or fall away (especially relationships). The whole thing stinks of ‘letting go’, and I’m not sure I’m ready! Transcendence bites 😉
They feel trapped/inhibited which I guess is the same thing as saying they can’t transcend.
It’s a prison.
I think one reason, is that we give away our power. Another is we’re taught to make others happy, but not ourselves. I’m currently transending both 😉
Angie
Elsa I think I get it, by the end of the third video I had a tear in my eye, realizing the impact of loss and not being able to understand it.
I know these video’s are hard for you, but I think they are superb.
I am struggling with this right now, today as this moon is crossing my 11th house aqua chiron(which is part of my opp uranus, square mars)
I was challenged today to give up more of my stuff(h 10 cappy moon) and I am having a real hard getting over it, even the request made me mad. Yes I have a strong 8th and 10th house. I HAVE TO DO THIS, I JUST HAVE TOO
I appreciate that, daisy. I will find another way, eventually. I am sorry you’re struggling.
That’s what Buddha said – every good thing also has suffering in it, if you can’t transcend/detach.
Like you get a new cool car that you love & someone scratches it etc.
And then you kill yourself over a scratch, lol.
I have that same t-square (((daisy))) wish you could take a detour to Nashvegas on your road trip. I’d take you target shooting & blow off energy then to see the giant Athena statue.
Okay, I found the other videos and realise I had, in fact, completely misunderstood you. Sorry! I think I get it now, although I also think I’m going retrograde, and probably have been intermittently for quite some time. Hopefully I’ll make it there eventually! I second Daisy, these videos are fantastic. I’m getting a tub of icecream presently to watch a load in succession and try to get some perspective on my life! Please keep ’em coming <3
Maybe it’s because they are wearing themselves out trying to be other people’s version of themselves.
Yes Jilly that is putting it mildly or lightly, but real none the less. So do you die when you let it all go, or do you die hanging onto it? Whoever said, “Life sucks and then you die” I wonder if they had a clue how profound those words really are.
how about the agony of transitioning between any of the houses? those are also leaps of faith, and some are easier than others
They can’t figure out how to do what makes them happy and still be able to survive at the same time.
Also, hell is other people.
Neptune in 12th. I guess I transcend through daydreaming or other forms of escape?
OK Jilly, how about the dump, with shot guns. Your call old toilet bowls or rats.
haha no shooting at the local dump allowed, unfortunately
Dang it Jilly I figured the 12th house rules dumps too.
“…but if 12th house is about letting go, I’m not sure my Scorpio Mars can ever do that????”.
I have Scorpio Mars, and I have managed to go Zen and let go. Sure, there are daily crappy things that go wrong, like having my house broken into, romances that don’t work out and the like, but I can detach, go way up high, look at the big picture, and ultimately it’s not that huge of a deal. I have my health, I have a place to live, I’m employed, my daughter is awesome and happy, I have a car, I’m fed, so what is there to bitch about? It could be much, much worse, and anything I could complain about would be a superficial first-world problem. I also have enough contentment that I can be there for others who are really, really under it right now. Use your Mars in Scorpio and GO (Mars) DEEPER (Scorpio). It works for me.
That’s really good advice Del. Thanks! 🙂
The first year after my father’s death, my solar return for that year showed a packed 12th house. Not surprising–spent a LOT of time in introspection, neglected chores, didn’t cook. VERY inward year.
8th I think? 🙂
“So do you die when you let it all go, or do you die hanging onto it?”
I hope we find out when we die at least LOL. Some of the Catholic mystics (and Drs of the Church) prayed to be put in that position via trauma, suffering, losing everything, being crushed like a bug by the universe & having everything ripped away.
(paraphrasing)
St John of the Cross said that when you are at that dark point, it looks like a “tower card” SHTF situation but really you’re on more *solid* ground; it’s just darker. Midnight daarrrrk.
At that point, he said, your soul is so humbled and open and sick of all the worldly BS, profoundly unhappy with your external reality, that all you really have left is faith (if you choose it) which is dark, a “midnight light.”
Dark because “it (faith) acquaints us with something, but we do not get to see it.”
So you’re really on more solid footing but it’s hard to see.
You can get to a place of satori (the zen place not our satori haha) that way. Of course he didn’t use that word but it is the same thing. no God in the zen equivalent of course….
…sorry I can’t shut up today. 😮
Stella, you are welcome. Remember our Mars is doing okay in Scorpio; we have an edge here. 🙂
And since it’s in your 12th, once you’re in a place where you can be okay with where you’re at, service (the 6/12 axis) can be your salvation.
“they fail to transcend.”
So true. Why else are monks/do people who meditate feel at peace? Why else do the non-meditators who pray or confide in diaries or who ‘talk it out’ just feel better? In different ways, these all deal with what you can and cannot accept, and what you can _let go_.
I saw two people crying in public today, one at work, one at the post office. I probably saw 20 people total today, even in passing. those aren’t good odds. 🙁
I like that picture. it’s a good metaphor for unhappiness. it looks like a roll that was cut into many: unhappiness multiplies.
but luckily so does happiness.
Deep
The Retrograde Mercury is currently exactly conjunct my Sun in the 12th House as we speak. I’ve lots of inner thoughts and feeling “un-understood”; not even misunderstood.
I’m also relating big time to Del’s posts re Scorpio/Mars.
I think it’s because sometimes reality sucks and it’s as simple as that.
Saturn in Capricorn!
Although I do agree that happiness is 50% the way you react to something though!
as my meditation teacher says – pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.
at first that didn’t make much sense to me but there’s this really great buddhist metaphor about the ‘second arrow’. the pain is the first arrow – things that we can’t control, difficult and painful things will happen. but we only compound the pain when we add the second arrow – basically telling ourselves that it’s not ok and ‘something is wrong’.
i’m still working at it, but i thought it was a great insight.
@satori I cried in front of a TAXI DRIVER today. Talk about OMG. He tried to joke with me, and I didn’t get it. Then he asked me if I was married–and pointed out why I’m not. 🙁 OUCH.
(((blue_rose)))
Jilly, thanks for that!
The last medical director we had at hospice was really into Zen and he always challenged my philosophy. One day he asked me a question about letting go and I said, “I can’t wait to get to heaven and ask God all these questions. The thing that worries me is what happens when I get there and forget the questions, cause they really just don’t matter?” He answered, “I thinking your getting this stuff!”
I’m not perfect at it yet, but I’m learning to care less about what people think about me. I am 23 now and I can’t believe how much I’ve grown mentally since I was 17! If you met me at 17, you would’ve met the most insecure, unhappy, and people-pleasing person you’ve ever met.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t care about other people or their opinions. It just means that I’m learning to care more about what I think and I guess this is just one piece of the puzzle of how to be happier?
Weird, I posted, and not there! (test!)
You know honestly I think people in this country have somehow weirdly been trained to be unhappy. My grandmother, and my mother, just had a high pain threshold and they just took the sorrow with the gravy. They were *intensely* unhappy about some things but given the shit their whole universe of relatives, history and acquaintances had gone through they just didn’t think hardship was particularly a reason to be unhappy.
We’re all trained to be bewildered because our lives don’t match the Mr. Clean commercial. We failed to obtain an Amana stainless steel double stuf refrigerator. We did not live up to our potential.
People are unhappy because all they know how to be is personally disappointed that their lives did not live up to, say, Star Wars. Or Donald Trump. Or whatever. My grandma would just laugh if she were here. Not because she thought these people were stupid but because her knees and arms were bruised and there was almost no money left, and still when she went out to the garden, her cabbages were absolutely gorgeous.
You know, it is true. Especially March through July I noticed so much misery. But overall unhappiness is rampant. The one’s I’ve found that are able to deal have some sort of spiritual base and that does make all the difference and yep, echoes Virgo to Pisces.
Response to eva – https://elsaelsa.com/astrology/2011/08/13/how-to-be-happy-in-life/
Well, our purpose in life is struggle, to learn things we didn’t “get” before. So we yearn for things (love, security, creativity, recognition, transcendance -whatever the soul doesn’t have)that are hard by design to obtain because life IS trying to develop the tools to get there.
So of course we’re going to feel like something is missing…JMO
and also, we’re completely out of touch with the natural world, and each other. We sit in our air conditioned homes with food purchased, not grown or killed. The easier we humans make it for ourselves, the further we move away from who we really are.
Lack of confidence in myself for specific reasons. loss of all kinds. I partially match eva’s description, but I am also very happy in ways – mainly because of my family.
Last night, I read a commitment to life pact, in the grief club (written by a woman who lost her son when he was twelve). I don’t know what I’d do if I lost my immediate family; they’re everything to me.
I agree with jenfullmoon!
Interestingly I made this same observation (about everyone seeming unhappy) to my sister in April when we were in San Rafael, California. We were lost, not totally lost, but not going the way we planned,driving to Mendocino from San Francisco for her 50th birthday. We were in a shopping center, going to get something to eat at the Safeway. San Rafael is incredibly gorgeous. Everyone seemed so unhappy. The people in the parking lot, the store employees, the people working at Starbucks, everyone! I just thought if they could just look around and see this beauty, but everyone is so caught up in their daily struggles and problems.
Also, I believe a lot of people are just plain unconscious, just going around following the crowd without even thinking about what they are doing. I notice this alot with people’s food choices. I’m very selective about what I eat and where it came from, etc., etc. Everytime I drive by a fastfood joint the drivethroughs are backed-up around the building. Then everyone wonders why they end up with cancer or heart disease or whatever. I just shake my head.
With all of this said I am myself unhappy much of the time. I feel like I wasn’t really meant for this world, because so much of it I just don’t get. I feel like an outsider much of the time. I am one who is always searching for answers or seeking to understand, and maybe it is me who creates my own problems or my own unhappiness. I am a double Virgo afterall.
I know that Elsa has told me I need to transcend my 12th house and I have read that elsewhere. My 12th house is packed, I’m just not sure I understand what transcending it means or how I go about it.
sunburn–yeah, I live not far from San Rafael, and I can tell you that I see the same thing too. I think people in Marin are so indoctrinated that “things” are what will make you happy. The Jones’ next door have this thing, this experience, and they are happy, so all I have to do is obtain this thing/experience, and I too will be happy. True happiness comes from knowing who you are, and living that truth. It doesn’t come from anyone else, although having good, solid relationships does help. I walk on a trail on Mt. Tam every day, and what I see amongst people who have life much much easier than me, makes me sad. I manage to get up there every day, 98% of the time with a smile on my face, talking to people, being supportive of others. Yet, look at my life, it is in shambles. Everything is falling apart, I’ve lost 2 members of my four legged family in the last year, and another one is on the way out. I have no income, am facing having to redefine my life at 55, have no relationship, and yet, I find joy in just having the opportunity to go out on that trail day after day, and find my solace. As I told a friend many many years ago: “your happiness is your responsibility”.
Huh. That is a fascinating idea. I’m not sure choices about happiness and unhappiness belong exclusively to the Virgo/Pisces axis, but I definately see a case for the 12th house being extremely important.
…this from a person with a 12th house stellium who’s still working on it. Not doing so well, but working on it.
Elsa, thank you for this. Your videos are a treasure trove – eye-opening, even years after the fact. This definitely hits home to me – my Scorpio rising seeks the ‘absolute’ truth, my 10th house Sun tries to use that truth to control the outcome (usually successful), and my 12th house Saturn cuts me down to size, makes me realize how fragile life is, and that it is so fragile for all of us – the child in me gets sad over this, but as I get older it gets easier to take joy in this process.
What I also gleaned from this post is just how important the 8th house is. Without it, the 12th house would just be a detachment without the transcendence. Transcendence requires real awareness of pain. I think the 8th house puts us in touch with existential suffering, and what does anything mean once all bets are off?
I think many people are unhappy because they don’t do the work of the 8th house.
Ruth~ I’m sorry to hear about losing your beloved members of your family! It’s so hard. I have a lot of animals who are also family members, and I know how deep it hurts. I too am redefining my life at almost 53, glad to know I’m not alone. Trying to live in the present moment and focusing on gratitude for what I do have has helped me more than anything I know, but it is a process, and I have to keep reminding myself when my world starts getting crazy on me.
I didn’t really mean to be picking on San Rafael, I mean I think it’s everywhere. I just happened to notice it there I think, because I was out of my “box” and just noticing everything because it was all new to me there.
Can I ask you guys about the 8th house? I have no planets in my 8th house (Aries), so what does that mean for me if I want to transcend my 12th house?
Dorchid when you refer to doing the work of the 8th house, can you elaborate? I have Pluto in Virgo in my 12th house. Does this mean anything? Sorry to be clueless, I’m new to Astrology, obviously.
Thanks!! Valorie