Attraction And Repulsion: Pluto, Scorpio, and the 8th House

childrens hospitalBack on Scorpio and the 8th house, people like me serve a purpose. Bad things have to happen to someone and they happen to us, which spares you.

For example, someone’s kid has to get sick. No one should have their kid get sick (or die) yet it happens. If not, why else would there be such a thing as a “Children’s Hospital”? Why are there Children’s cancer wards? It’s because someone’s kid is going to be stricken and guess what? It’s my kid not yours.

I had a pal tell me the facts about a year ago and I am glad she did because otherwise I don’t think I’d have caught on. She said the other mothers… the ones at the school seeing my family struggle; basically looked at me as an “example of the bad things that can happen.”

I heard that and I had to laugh. Because I realized I have been setting this example since I was born. Not to pity me. My position in this life is a very energetic one, just picture it.

I show up at the school for the 4th time in 5 days with a major problem. There is a gaggle of other mothers who watch me walk from my car to the school for the 100th time and think what?

Vintage scorpio charmWell ultimately they think, “Glad that’s not me.” People run out of compassion you know. That is, if they had it in the first place.

If your kid is sick, they rally around but if your kid stays sick, well look out. People drop away. In the end there is almost a total abandonment. It happened to you, not them and if there is no miracle, they are out of here. People distance themselves, preferring to avoid people like me and hang with the people who bad things don’t happen too which is why 8th house types / Scorpio feel like lepers at time.

And yet the same people who shun you are attracted. They want to feed. If your kid is sick and theirs is not, it must be because they are better than you and if you doubt the lack of compassion or just want to marvel at how this phenomena works just check the latest comments on the Elizabeth Smart vs Nancy Grace blog, because I’ll be damned, look at the shadow cast on her.

This is a phenomena, people. Nothing less.


Do you feel people are compassionate? What percentage would you put on that?

24 thoughts on “Attraction And Repulsion: Pluto, Scorpio, and the 8th House”

  1. I don’t know how to quantify compassion. it’s tough when a lot of people make an effort to APPEAR compassionate– so what percentage of those people actually ARE? then there are a whole lot of people who FEEL compassion but don’t (for whatever reason) act on it.

  2. You’ve made a very fine distinction and given me lots of food for thought. I don’t feel my Scorpio (Mars and Saturn) as much as I do my Virgo (Venus and Mercury) and I don’t have any planets in my 8th house. I certainly don’t know what it’s like to be magnetic.

    And compassionate? Perhaps I feel I’m overstepping boundaries. Or that I will come off like Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm, who often inadvertently offends.

  3. I’m glad you feel it is a phenomena and nothing else, Elsa. There’s nothing that makes me more disgusted and repelled by a lack of compassion than a lack of compassion for a CHILD. Elizabeth Smart was a CHILD.

    It’s this lack of compassion that keep conviction rates and sentencing lengths for sexual and violent crimes LOW. The public acts like they don’t give a shit? Then why would the courts?

  4. i think few people have any grasp of compassion.

    i don’t really know why.

    i think it’s because they’re too afraid to feel the pain of others. particularly for any extended period.

  5. no, most people especially in the u.s are NOT compassionate. they are a bunch of mindless tv zombies who do not think for themselves and only think of themselves. especially when it comes to illness, all that make a wish sick kids stuff you see on tv is a p.r. gimmick for one of the largest industries on earth: the sickness care industry, it’s not what real people feel, it’s made up. I know from experience when someone is sick and they don’t get well right away, most people will run away and avoid the situation, they’re not sick and if you’re not getting well, they’re getting bored. being ill in the u.s is a solitary journey for the sick person unless they have family, friends or someone to advocate for them because the sickness industry will bombard you with dozens of sickness care personnel to undermine and prescribe and recommend and cut and x-ray and test and prod and poke and scalpal until your insurance won’t pay and if you’re still sick, oh, well, guess you’re out of luck. this may sound harsh but that’s the way I see it.

  6. I’ve been on both ends of the phenomenon.
    I think people draw this line because it feels so much safer to not have to worry this will happen to them too. I think it’s human.

    Of course some people go further and can me mean and do harm to victims. which sucks. But other then that I think it’s human to draw this rational line, and think there’s a reason this is happening to others and not you, especially if you’re overly empathetic by nature and you’re just drained by daily life as it is.

    whith saturn transiting the 7th and being hit by SAD lately, people are just running away from me now, i drain them. And I’ve come to understand that, there’s only so much you can ask from people.

  7. People drop away. In the end there is almost a total abandonment.

    I think there are many factors as to why this happens,and one of them is tiredness. All ongoing drama and illness is draining of the people who suffer it as much as for the people around them. Dealing with acute situations is much easier than dealing with chronic ones which require a special kind of emotional resilence and endurance and a very tough Saturn. There’s always an emotional charge attached to those situations, and when they don’t stop but just go on and on people get the feeling of running on empty. Even the most compassionate can start to feel that they have nothing left to give, and that they need to detach and conserve their energies.

    Abandonment does not always mean a lack of compassion. You can still like someone and wish them the best but realise that the interaction is doing you no good and that you need to conserve your strength. Otherwise they will get to a point where they themselves will be useless.

  8. elsa,

    have you ever felt bitterness about the backing off? or alienation?

    i think people feel compassion in the abstract or in small doses, but like you say it’s hard to maintain for the long term. they don’t want to deal with pluto/scorpio unless they have to, i.e., it happens to them.

    it saddens me the way compassion can be faddish though. and the thinking that you and your kids are better than someone else’s. let’s rally around the sick kid until there’s no cure…then let’s find another one!

    as an aside, in my imagination i’m worried about bad things happening, perhaps b/c my father always read us the bad news every morning, reminding us of killing, fires, accidents, illness and the like. so when my grandmother died [from a heart attack after having another one a year previously] and my mother said, i never thought this would happen i was like huh? it never crossed your mind?

    i guess i’m just wondering what makes someone anticipate [or be aware of] death/the shadow side and others just ignore the possibility? and is there a connection to those who feel “better” than others?

    [sorry for the ramble, something about your post hit a nerve.]

  9. astrotica – I do not feel bitterness at all. I just don’t. I don’t blame the people who walk actually. This is really hard and it’s my job not theirs.

    The people I do blame are the ones who heap more injury on top me. These people I would probably loathe them if I had the time or energy, but I really don’t have the time or energy so instead it’s more like I just have an awareness. I am aware of them but no passion to offer. I figure they are living on a different planet for the most part and just go on doing what I do – living.

  10. My Scorpio sister w/Mars conjunct Saturn in Cancer has been doing home care for elderly & DD adults for 20+ years. She also has a Cancer Moon in her 1st House. I told her how much I admire her for being able to do that . . . knowing quite well I couldn’t and stay sane. I went thru a year of nursing school and realized as much as I’m drawn to helping people, my sanity would not survive without serious closing off of sensitivities. Conundrum of the healing professions: being a sensitive allows for deep empathy & understanding and makes the pain of others almost unbearable.

  11. I think for the most part people´s true nature is compassionate but together with that they carry a huge bag of judgments attached and these light up all of their fears and they get stuck in that. That by and large they are self-concerned, yes, I agree, but I would say that is how it should be, in the positive sense, it is when we are whole and happy that we can then be of service to others and we are each responsible for our own challenges.

    As for illness, it serves a great purpose and it can be used like the irritant inside a shell that creates the pearl. As yet, alternative healing systems out there are not respected much by our society at large and only used by a minority, just like astrology. I have seen many people recover from serious illness and they said the illness was the best thing that happened to them.

    So, isn´t the 8th house also about the power of transformation, the power to heal? I think being a shadow of the collective must be just one side of the 8th H energy. Is is not in the power of change, of renewal, of regeneration that the essence of the 8th house lies? This has certainly been my personal experience and it is the most rewarding part of the Scorpion energy and I wouldn´t want to live without it.

  12. That’s so cool about your sister, Neith. Home care…wow what a beautiful expression of that 1st House Cancer Moon/Saturn/Mars.

    I used to want to be a nurse until my SO was in hospital for an extended period of time.
    For me it wasn’t being around the people in pain, but rather that the nurses are run ragged and didn’t seem to have time to interact on a personal level with the people in their care.

    I agree with you, Analysa. Illness can be a powerful route to transformation.

  13. I appear like a total jerk. I think the things we deal with are the things we deal with. They just are. So, when my best friend got cancer, I hugged him once and then said, “let’s beat this mf”. When we’re together and he talks about what’s up with him, i listen, but I don’t coddle. I am logical, help him face death and help him fight the good fight. But I’m not sweet. I’m not sentimental. I’m hardly gentle. I’m there and I care. But I also accept death as part of life. I think I’m as compassionate as I would be with myself.

  14. i don’t think it’s either/or. same person, some days compassionate, some days not. some days, they may simply be grateful it’s not them, other days, they want to find fault so they can feel more secure they are safe, unsettled with the vauge notion it could be them. if you can blame the person suffering, you are safe!

    nina shares a good point as well. it takes a huge amount of emotional fortitude to be totally present for someone else’s pain. it takes an espeically solid personal emotionally to do this on any kind of sustained basis, and things going on in their lives, as well as other’s, wear down. you have to have very solid boundaries to be able to do that…

  15. actually…isn’t compassion for others the greatest form of self-protection and self-interest? No one is secure from anything! No matter how many good things have happened to me I’ve always felt that I was only a few steps away from turning into the bag lady on the street. What softens this is knowing that there is no real security unless you can count on yourself to show up for others…

  16. Elsa – it saddens me to think ‘total abandonment’ is ok. Everyone lives in some sort of context and is dependent on someone. So aren’t we all supposed to chip in and help uplift those experiencing the shadow…unless we want to experience that shadow someday too? You either experience the shadow directly and deserve compassion, or you experience it indirectly and are obligated to give compassion. Like you’ve said before, it really is true that you either serve or suffer.

  17. >>>Elsa – it saddens me to think ‘total abandonment’ is ok. >>

    Well it’s okay with me. People have lives of their own to take care of and I prefer this is what they do rather than be consumed by mine.

    And when someone does something out of “obligation” it’s pretty gross anyway if you’re on the receiving end.

    None of this matters anyway (to someone like me). It is what it is and people do what they do. But I remark on my observations for the same reason I write everything else on this blog, I think this stuff is interesting.

  18. This was an incredibly insightful post elsa and gave much food for thought.

    I do truly believe that people generally try and want to be compassionate but like many have mentioned its rare for continued compassion through forever ongoing intense pain and hardship. Its too much and so people shy away to reserve or because they just cant deal anymore and unlike the sufferer they have a choice to not to deal and to walk away. Its just human and understandble but it creates an extra topping of pain when your already living a nightmare and you find you’ve been deserted.

    Long and withstanding compassion is rare and far between but thats why when it comes by its worth so much.

  19. What an interesting topic. I believe there are some genuinely compassionate people. I also believe there are some people who sadly, appear to get off on other’s misery. They stupidly derive some false feeling of superiority over those less fortunate.
    I agree that some may start out demonstrating compassion but if the situation persists they keep away from the less fortunate soul, like they’ve got some contagious disease.
    I truly pity those, who fail to realise how deeply rewarding/satisfying it can be to love and support others. Life has way more meaning when you operate from a stance of giving. Some only realise when faced with death what life is really about. It’s about what you Gave, not what you got.

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