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Pluto Transit To The Moon - Mine: How Do You Move Towards Resolution Post A Traumatic Event?
Astrology in real life
I’ve written a few times about the challenge of not falling into the abyss due the trauma of losing my daughter. I have tried to navigate the best I can and now with Pluto fixing the turn direct, the loss is being hammered home and it’s occurred to me I’d be well advised to make some kind of pivot here, but how?  Just exactly how can I move beyond a state where I walk around in stupor mumbling, “How does something like this happen? How could it?”
You may or may not know the soldier has lost not one but two daughters. He has come to the obvious conclusion he was not meant to have a daughter and in fact when we started to come together, he thought he might get a third chance. He thought my daughter could be his daughter and we could raise her together but as you can see this is not how it played and the loss to him is staggering - He just does not get to have a daughter this life and that is all there is to it.
I want to be able to get my mind to grasp events in a way that allows me to be more at ease with how things turned out and knowing he has been down (and on) this road for years, I asked him if he knew how I might move myself or my soul to a place beyond where I am now and was surprised when he was able to succinctly map a path out of this thicket.
He said I should first separate facts from feelings and he went on to list the facts in my situation, there were three of them.  He explained that feelings cannot be trusted and offered an analogy as to what he meant.
He said he would give his soldier’s an ice cube to hold… if you hold and ice cube in your hand awhile and then hold that hand under a stream of cold water, the water will feel hot. This is meant to show the men that you cannot trust your feelings. Feelings are relative to other things going on so you must use your mind.
He went on but in the end, I got this out of the conversation:
Nail down the facts and be ready to check and refer back to them.  The feelings take their own course and he said he is sure I will be dealing with them for the rest of my life.
This may sound like nothing but compare it to the alternative which sounds like this:
“What if?”
“Maybe if only…?”
“What if the sky was yellow, bees were blue, we lived upside down and all the math was wrong?”
That would be an example of someone getting their facts jumbled and it’s easy to see you’re not going to get out of the maze if you allow this to go on.
This is applicable to relationships you know. If you are having trouble coping with the loss of a relationship, perhaps try nailing down your facts.
Anyone else have tips? How do you recover egregious loss?
pictured - Rembrandt Peale, Pearl Of Grief, 1849, Oil on canvas… and my daughter
27 Responses to “Pluto Transit To The Moon - Mine: How Do You Move Towards Resolution Post A Traumatic Event?”
Besides Pluto, it also sounds like a Chiron story mixed with 12th house buried memories. I am projecting my own history here, but i was able to move beyond inherited invisible pathos with transpersonal therapies, like family constellations, “psychogenealogy” (i do not know the word in english), and Eriksonian hypnosis. Some wounds are really old. “Psychogenealogy” deals with the facts that invisible and unrecognized stories of our past (our ancestors) tend to repeat themselves so they can be released and healed. There is always a story waiting to be recognized in the light. Transpersonal planets transits need to be addressed by crossing the mystery of life and death. We can´t grasp it with the mind. It´s deep soul work.
With Pluto we die with the dead so we can learn to embrace life. It feels like a spiritual rape… but the soul cannot be harmed. So, how do we transform it all? The power is there, it is…
Love to you, Elsa.
Paloma
Elsa, I am so sorry for you. my brother lost his 11 yr old daughter suddenly in 1997 and I still don’t know what to say. I don’t even think i could be strong enough to deal. Blessings to you for strength.
I have no idea. Separating the facts from feelings is a great suggestion if you can stay in that space.
http://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/385/through_a_glass_darkly?page=1
This is a perspective on moving through grief by psychotherapist Miriam Greenspan. Her parents were holocaust survivors and she has her own very personal story of grief.
Elsa, I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t know what to do in your situation, but I think the soldier has a very good point. How do I deal with lost of relationships? I think of it as that person was supposed to help me get to a point or be with me to a certain point, and now It’s time for me to grow stronger with what they have enlightened me of. But in death I don’t know it’s so final.
After a loss, I have felt like I need to fake it for a while, just go through the motions of life, trying to have a hold on things where it felt like there were really no holders.
It can be like barely getting to the grocery store and getting nothing on the list and coming home with strange items. At least there was the getting to the grocery store and that’s a start.
I think it becomes a Saturn issue, or Time. After hundreds of Tuesdays, Tuesday starts to feel like a kind of Tuesday again but not that old kind of Tuesday. It never stops being sad or hurting, but one day I looked back and saw new Tuesdays start to be sort of okay.
But for the acute phase, now, I think being around people with whom you feel safe and love (people who know what’s going on and who know Mosta) is comforting because weepiness, anger or any other emotion on the Richter scale is normal and not judged not tried to be repaired.
Once, someone told me loss was like an amputation, and that felt like the truth. I was able to look more objectively at what to do, how do I get the therapy I need, which will allow me to lead a good life with what I still have.
I am so glad you have the soldier with you, Elsa. It is obvious how good he is for your aching soul. I admire you desire and strength to stay out of that abyss. I wish I could do more to help shore you up - all I can do is keep sending you energy of love, healing, and protection. You are amazing. *hugs*
The way I get through terrible loss is to come to an understanding that life, in all of its incarnations, is interesting. If nothing else, it will be interesting. The pain will be interesting, and so will unexpected joys.
As you might imagine from my prior comment on depression, I am a very verbal person. I do strange and specific things to heal. For a long time, after I had a significant series of losses in my life, I would play a song by Rilo Kiley (”Better Son/Daughter”) every single day, screaming the lyrics, and proclaiming them my “marching orders”. These were my commands:
sometimes when you’re on
You’re really fucking on
And your friends they sing along
And they love you
But the lows are so extreme
That the good seems fucking cheap
And it teases you for weeks in its absence
But you’ll fight and you’ll make it through
You’ll fake it if you have to
And you’ll show up for work with a smile
And you’ll be better
You’ll be smarter
More grown up and a better daughter or son
And a real good friend
And you’ll be awake
You’ll be alert
You’ll be positive though it hurts
And you’ll laugh and embrace all of your friends
And you’ll be a real good listener
You’ll be honest
You’ll be brave
You’ll be handsome and you’ll be beautiful
And you’ll be happy
Your ship may be coming in
You’re weak but not giving in
To the cries and the wails of the valley below
Your ship may be coming in
You’re weak but not giving in
And you’ll fight it you’ll go out fighting all of them
– Rilo Kiley
Yes, I am glad too, Rainie. It is all beyond my comprehension at this stage but these are the events and what the situation is.
Elsa, if I could, I would give back what you’ve given me by way of this blog. I began reading when I was barely hanging on due to my own grieving, and you (and the soldier, via your stories about him) have helped beyond measure. And that is a fact..
Please excuse my bluntness. It’s kind of my problem when I try to say things about pain. However, keep this in mind as you live your life. People in our society do not know how to deal with death or illness or grieving. There is no set ritual, time for grieving, markings of someone who is in a period of loss etc. etc.
So what this means is that as a culture other people don’t know how to deal with someone who is in that part of their life. Their reactions aren’t going to always be kind or helpful even if they mean them to be.
What is also means is that when others have forgotten in 6 months or a year that you are grieving you will just be coming out of the first phase of the healing process and will still be more raw than anyone might expect. They will not understand tears, a sense of loss or anything else from you at that point.
(Given that this is a generalization - but I’ve watched this happen with an aunt and an uncle who lost their life partner and how their friends and family treated them over the time after their loss)
It will all take longer than you ever, or those around you, expect. Remember to treat yourself with kindness. That’s the most important thing to remember.
and a hug from me if I could give it to you and I will tell you that it’s rare that i hug people as I’m from northern MN stock.
(hug)
My heart goes out to you, Elsa. And all I know to say about moving beyond a wrenching loss comes from losing my mother almost two years ago. After the ache began to subside and the tears dwindled down to a trickle (in other words I had to let myself feel what I was feeling and do the hard work that is grieving) I began to focus more on being grateful that she was my mother, for having the kind of mother I had and for the lessons she taught me and for the fact that I got to be her daughter. My people’s teachings also taught me to believe that I will see her again, that everything that once pained and mystified me will then be understood, and in the place where she is at she is not sick, not suffering, not lonely, and I have turned to these teachings many times for comfort since she had to leave us.
I have also found that a memory, a scent, a place can trigger the renewal of loss and grief, and I have to let the tears flow once more, but that these times are becoming fewer and farther between, and are not as intense as they once were.
But for what it’s worth I learned that gratitude was the balm that, after enough time had passed, brought acceptance and peace, and my love for her was renewed and strengthened.
Hope this small offering helps you in some way, and please know that you and your loved ones are in my thoughts and prayers.
(((Elsa)))
Love to you all…I wish I had the words to say how much.
To answer your question, I feel that with the losses I have had I’ve come to accept that I don’t ‘recover’ so much as transform.
I know there are some people who feel that they are who they are, and that is it…but when you lose someone you love so dearly and they are no longer in the physical form for you to embrace…yes, you are different.
You are different because your relationship with them as they exist on earth is different.
Something that has helped me is reminding myself that grief, like time, isn’t linear. It surfaces at any time, and any place, like Peppermint has said.
One of my closest friends died unexpectedly last month, and I’m still feeling in awe of the internal, eternal whirlwind that has erupted inside of me.
I’m glad that you have people close to you who love you, and I’m also glad that you possess a desire to enjoy yourself in life no matter what crosses your path.
Perhaps this innate desire to be happy is your dearest friend. How wonderful it resides within you, along with the love of your child!
Elsa, I have never suffered a loss like this, so I don’t know what to say. But I will say this, your posts about losing your daughter are helping me, actually. I’m about to be trained to work with people who are suffering, grieving, and I’ve gotten a lot of “training” here. I’m gaining insight into what it must be like. Reading about your experiences, and feeling so much compassion for you and your situation. So, in effect, I am better equipped - because of you and your experience - to go out and help other people. In that way, Elsa, I think you’re a hero. Thanks.
P.S. Heather, that article was stunning. It was like I was meant to read that right now.
See, this is what I mean, Elsa brings together a community of people who can share their experiences and help everyone else around them. It’s really amazing.
hadn’t thought of it in terms of what the soldier said specifically, but there’s some similarity to how i’ve managed.
letting go of all self blame, knowing i consistently did the best i knew how every step of the way.
acknowleding both the loss and the gifts i’ve gotten from the relationship. they’re both real. one does not cancel out the other. realizing the incredible value of the gifts, while it intensifies the sense loss, also reminded me how lucky i was to have the relationship to begin with.
amplifying every expression and experience of love in my life.
crying the tears, blogging the fears, and forgiving myself, others, god, life, whatever. the anger was worse than the loss for me and was eating me alive.
hugs. lots of hugs are good.
I’m so sorry.
Kashmiri said very well how it has worked for me; I simply transform into another incarnation of who I am in this life.
Elsa, the words are bubbling and I can’t even translate them to what I want to say to you. I cannot imagine what you are going through; I cannot help you in any tangible way to cope. All I can do is send love to you and pray for you and your family - and I do that every single day.
Well, Elsa, you’d think with a Scorpio Moon square Pluto, at age 59, I’d have this all figured out. I have had my share of loss and trauma, some of it handled better than others. I thought I had recovered from most of it until tr Pluto started to semi-square my natal Moon and a lot of it came up again although not as raw, thankfully. What seems to help more than anything else is writing. I write and write and write, and it does seem to help. And I work…at something, anything. This summer I had a garden for the first time in years and that has helped enormously. Peace to you. You have such courage to share these things. And thank you for your incredible contribution to astrology with Top Ten Sources and Astro News. But none of that replaces your daughter. I know. I lost a son. I lost him several times. Take care. You will cope, and you will heal.
my grandparents moved their family out to the beach (a cold, windy, beautiful place where swimming would get you swept out into the undertow) and camped out of a trailer there for three months after my uncle died. i imagine it depends on the person, but the sea has always been a great healer for me.
i imagine any number of natural environments could serve. there’s something about immersing oneself in more harsh examples of nature’s beauty that, for me, at least, has helped to get a perspective on the apparently senseless harshness of life….
like finding another perspective to work your feelings through.
Wow, Wyrdling. That was really nice. I love your comments.
I did this after both my grandmothers died and I left a six year relationship . . . I just parked it out by a craggy coast for some months. I feel the same way about the sea. Thanks for saying that.
Elsa, I’m so sorry for both of you…
I don’t even have children yet; any words of consolation I could come up with, would only be short of the mark… For this reason, I’ll echo what Doreen said; that you will cope and you will heal! That’s what resourceful people do, and we all have the impression that you’re one of them:))
That said, I have been through several traumatic experiences. Have I healed? It’s very difficult to pinpoint, as I’m a completely different person now - and it’s a transformation that runs deep.
My tyrannical and impossible to please dad (Sun-Pluto rising square Moon in Sco) now turns to me for input about my approach to life. There are obviously different kinds of strength…
This is what works for me (Mars conjunct Pluto sextile Saturn in Leo - i.e. fixed!)
- Don’t ask “why me?”, “why now?”, “what if” etc. Accept that this sh*t came your way - and deal with what IS. Which it appears is what you’re doing, Elsa:)
And Dr. Love says: Make love and keep fights to an absolute minimum.
*Hugs*
I don’t know Elsa, it is deeply personal and I am so so sorry that you are experiencing this! If it happened to me, I would likely alternate between a deep need for seclusion and a need to be with people who were real and knew when it was time to shut up and when it was time to say something substantial. I would likely write a lot, like you are doing. I would do things that nurtured my soul and seek out people who were capable of helping me with that. I think that once things settled down and I could stop thinking that everything that I do or think was making me feel sick, I would travel. I would want to hold people I loved and be held and be loved. Something like this would be transformational and to a certain extent I would try and let go and be transformed.
Hi Elsa,
Nicely written, and I agree that it’s very important to nail down the facts. Currently, I’m grieving over abortions that I had many years ago, with a man I walked out on but never left (in my heart).
What’s helping me is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). I do it in the form of written exercises that I learned from reading books by Dr. David M. Burns. Here are the two that helped me: “When Panick Attacks” and “Feeling Good”. The idea behind CBT is if we change the way we think we can change the way we feel. It’s not about positive thinking, it’s about thinking logically.
Best wishes,
Jessica
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Get stuck into work is my solution. Takes your mind off things and gives you a sense of acheivement, which helps with the depression.
I just got blown out of a 10 yr relationship so I’m suffering a bit too. Nothing like what you’re going through though.
I feel for you Elsa.