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One Year Ago On The Elsa Blog: 1 Minute Astrology - Pluto, Scorpio, Elizabeth Smart And Suffering In The Collective
1 minute astrology
When one person suffers is another one spared?
From Wikipedia:
“Elizabeth Ann Smart (born 1987) was abducted from her Salt Lake City, Utah bedroom on June 5, 2002 at the age of 14. She was found alive nine months later on March 12, 2003 in Sandy, Utah, about 18 miles from her home, in the company of Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Ileen Barzee, who were indicted for her kidnapping but ruled unfit to stand trial. Her abduction and recovery were widely reported in North American media and internationally and were the subject of a made-for-TV movie and a published book.”
Do you feel your shoulder more than your share of the collective burden?
17 Responses to “One Year Ago On The Elsa Blog: 1 Minute Astrology - Pluto, Scorpio, Elizabeth Smart And Suffering In The Collective”
Busted - posting her chart next blog, but here’s the data - Nov 3, 1987, 1:03 pm, salt lake city UT
Very interesting take…it makes me wonder of this: what if you are surrounded by people who have suffered and you yourself have not (not in the same way). My friend and I were discussing this just yesterday.
I have had countless people in my life (women and men, but– as reflected by statistics of reported cases–women more so then men) speak to me of sexual abuse.
My friend has countless people in her life who have either lost a child, or their children have been very, very sick. I’ve never been abused in this way, and her child is healthy.
It is an unusual thing to contemplate. Furthermore, it makes me wonder: what does it really take to be compassionate, when one’s personal experiences are so different than another person’s? Does it come from a place within that essentially emits ‘I’m glad this didn’t happen to me?’ I don’t know the answer.
But why do people invest so much of their energy by begging to witness another person’s suffering? I read something online recently, a book reviewer lamenting the rise of what she tagged ‘the misery memoir’–personal tales of pain and suffering. Many people feel they benefit from witnessing another person’s suffering.
Is it because they are being a WITNESS and therefor acknowledging another person’s personal experience? Or is it ‘whew, glad this didn’t happen to me’? It’s so strange.
Maybe this is what you and your sister mean: even though I am unable to ‘help’ a person like Elizabeth Smart, by knowing of her experience, I feel a sense of compassion towards her, and since I can’t direct it to her (the person who has suffered so greatly) my feeling can be directed outwards.
Is this what you mean when you talk about the collective?
When they got her back I had deja-vu-itis back to the Patty Hearst case .. because it almost seemed like Elisabeth hadn’t minded her time away? That she just went with the experience…
Has she really suffered? Maybe she’s such an inward person it hasn’t affected her much. Has she made comments indicating she suffered? We can assume but our (collective) assumptions aren’t always true even if there are a whole bunch of opinions in consensus vs. one person’s reality, of which she isn’t really speaking.
I can relate to her coming back to society and see it in my (thankfully not permanent!) astrology. I have an 8th house solar return sun this year and a Scorpio progressed moon, with transiting Pluto on the descendant as well.
I was fired when ‘written up’ by a co-worker I hardly knew who in all likelihood was just venting the frustrations of both of our workplaces falling apart. I was ‘disapeared’ from the workplace, one where people hardly know each other anyway and rely on rumours / gossip / innuendo. So…some kind of urban legend probably took the place of my reality in their minds. I’ll have to confront it because I’ve been reinstated in the job and can’t get a large chunk of money until I return.
I know the hushed tones and possible shunning as well as ‘fascination’ that will likely happen. People in this job think there’s nothing worse than being fired, no matter how bad the job gets. Reality: it was a relief and one of the best things to have happened. Almost needless to say my 6th house of work is Pluto-ruled.
In Elisabeth’s case we can see the opposing spectrum of Pluto-Sun for a child which usually shows in the men in their lives - Elisabeth’s father was very wealthy, this other man who had a great effect on her life was a mysterious abductor. As she gets older will she own her Pluto-Sun and what will that look like?
Kashmiri, on your note about people feeling they benefit from witnessing another person’s suffering:
I have a friend (27yr male) whose mother was hit by a car and killed a couple of weeks ago. I emailed him last wknd because I felt a strong need to let him know I was there if he needed a place to reach out in his mind and feel someone.
He sent a note out today thanking people for their support and said he had realized how necessary those people were in helping him get through the internalization of the experience.
The thought also crossed my mind that I was getting something from it. What was it I was getting? I wondered if there was a selfish need to be a part of this huge event in his life because he is important to me and I want to be important to him. I couldn’t quite settle down on it being Selfish exactly, but the thought crossed my mind. Maybe the benefits go both ways.
Mary this is the kind of thing I’m thinking about…and there is nothing untoward about benefiting from giving kindness/support to other people. Like what Elsa says ’serve or suffer.’
I know about myself that my friends are important to me, and I to them…so I want to be involved somehow.
I guess it’s not up to us to define that involevment, though.
Alternatively, I have felt upset when something happens in the life of a person close to me and they do not tell/involve me. I know people have a right to privacy, so what is it?
Am simply wanting to express my love, or is the other thing, which is that I often identify myself through my relationships…so it’s not about them, it’s about me (eg. am I trustworthy? doesn’t this person know i want to help?)
T-carat, I think I get what you’re saying. Elizabeth Smart isn’t exactly ‘expressing her suffering’ but I wouldn’t be, either. She was still a minor when she was found (15) and thus her family protected her as much as they could from the public curiosity-mill. Perhaps they know of their daughter she would not only survive but prosper if she was allowed to keep her deeper emotions out of view. There’s nothing worse for some Plutonians than having everything on display, and up for scrutiny.
I don’t understand the media (CNN reporters et al) curiosity though: ‘How bad was it to be abducted from your bed and kept from your family for 9 months while you were subject to abuse?’ Well, obviously it was bad. Are public viewers so out of it they need to have it explained to them step-by-step how suffering works?
BTW T-carat my progressed moon crossed into Scorpio two weeks ago. I wonder if this intense death/relationship experience was my first feel of that energy.
I tend to be a drama magnet. Even when I am not having major or minor personal drama in my life, I somehow end up being surrounded by people who are having drama. Right now I’m surrounded by other people’s marital drama. It’s pretty weird, since I’m a lifelong spinster type and it’s not like I know jack about marriage!
I don’t know if being a Scorpio rising has anything to do with it, but…*shrug*
Wow, if she is human she suffered. And for me, I can imagine the media’s prying questions being just as bad as the experience itself. When someone is forced into a situation like that they shouldn’t be expected to spill the gritty details. I see these media people as vultures a lot of the time.
Can’t you try to imagine being so young and going through an experience like that? Something horrible, and horriflying and possibly humiliating as well. Would you want to be questioned by a reporter about it later?
I don’t like horror movies about real-life stuff either. Some people get a second-hand thrill from the victim vs. abuser situation. When you’re in the theater watching a movie like that, do you know who the person next to you is identifying with? Sociopaths make up about 4% of the population, you know.
My moon (Leo) is in the 2nd house. There are times of much abundance and then there are times in which I wonder how I ever took what they had for granted, because [now] it is so much harder to have even a shred of whatever is important.
I compare myself to Lucille Ball - everything I touch breaks at some point and if it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.
akasally - it did and then I mistakenly deleted it! But here is a copy and if you cut and paste and post again, I will make sure it goes up and then delete this copy. Sorry!!
akasally WRITES:
Yours is a very interesting take on individual suffering being a kind of cosmic sponge for the toxins (in all sorts of manifestation) that would otherwise kill off the flock. My Scorpio and Mercury in the 10th House and Pluto in 7th House give me lots of magnetic energy. As I read your post Elsa, I witness my journey with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities … an over-load of the corporate collective expression that has run amok for 400 years. There’s a lot of suffering going on with a life with MCS, and then I see the transformation … the intuitive harmonics in the form of your post and another about INNER ECOLOGY and I go — yah, I’m out of sync/suffering/sans old friends/most of society because I’m supposed to be able to absorb this KAKA and make it through. What I learn is worth something!
The eye of the needle image comes up for me. I go through there so many times in a life. Mercury conjunct that Scorp in the 10th gives me a way to write about it. Capricorn Moon in the 12th draws me into the cave, to hide out, questioning whether I have the ‘right’ … fear is a good thing sometimes … and then I spot that eye of the needle, put on my knee supporters and climb that ledge, again.
Yeh, I feel I shoulder the burden more than some. I appreciate your view Elsa, because it’s bigger than most, because who could come up with a perspective on the kid-napping that made these kinds of waves.
Elsa, thank you for saving that comment. I can’t cut and paste it, so we’ll just let ‘er lay…
Kashmiri…I wonder about that too- why I’m surrounded by suffering. I have and have had countless friends who were sexually abused as children. I have also had friends who were dirt poor as compared to me growing up. I don’t understand it. I really don’t.
I’ve had a fair share of misery in my life, but not compared to them, and I also feel like I carry more of the burden in the way that I’m hyper-sensitive about things. Things hurt me a few times more than others, including my abused friends, so I feel like it “evens out” in an odd way. Like I can be miserable day to day and they have their memories, and maybe that’s why they have me as a friend- I can sympathize? But it’s so strange, and I really like this pov of feeling grateful toward them.
personally, no, i haven’t suffered the way or extent of many people i know. i’ve had my own, sure, but nothing like that….but akin to a couple of the other comments here, i have the ability to help contain other people’s suffering. it’s less collective and more individual, one-on-one. maybe it’s saturn in 7th house pisces. or some of my pluto influences. i don’t know, but i know it helps sometimes, so i’m glad i can do it.
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Cool post Elsa. Really smart perceptive idea. Yous sister and Elizabeth smart — how do you think Scorpio or Pluto might be different in performing this suffering or containing negativity function for others? Big questions for me, as Pisces Sun opposite Pluto.
Also, just outta curiousity — do you have Smart’s birth data handy?
B