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Practically from the moment Saturn entered Scorpio, my quiet, well-ordered life hit a series of potholes. It started when three of my neighbors went away, and I happily took charge of five extra cats. Then, like dominoes, a flurry of minor disasters fell. Friends in crisis needed visits and care. Our tabby Spike developed a malaise. A huge chunk of a beloved molar went missing one day. (I’ve reached the age when parts of my body have started defecting.)
The crescendo of suck came when one of my feline charges took a bad turn on the very day his owner was scheduled to return home. I rushed Amos to the vet and received a discouraging prognosis. All I could do was keep him as comfortable as possible and hold his paw until his owner arrived.
Eventually I was relieved of my cat-sitting duties, and life began to return to normal. The dentist put a temporary bit of goo on my tooth. Spike, as it turned out, was just fine. Finally, I thought, I could catch up on the work that’s been backing up since my latest speaking trip.
Except instead, I’ve spent two days on the couch with a heating pad, nursing the worst sore back I’ve had in years.
I realize a lot of people who have had a much rougher couple of weeks than I have. Thousands of people lost practically everything in hurricane Sandy. Two of my clients have been diagnosed with serious illnesses, a close friend lost a beloved aunt to cancer, another suffered a stroke, and yet another is devoting every bit of energy to caring for her mother, who has advanced Alzheimer’s. And frankly, it’s embarrassing to admit that all it took to send me to the edge was a couple of ailing cats, a tired old tooth, and a schedule that was a bit too full.
On the other hand, misery is relative. Mine was powerful enough to hobble my back and drive me to the couch – which, if I’m honest, has been a pretty welcome place to hang out for a couple of days. It’s been a busy year full of traveling, speaking, and socializing, and I guess I was overdue for a rest. The last two weeks distilled a year’s worth of craziness into one potent package of overscheduling and worry, just enough to tip me over the cliff.
Which brings us to the November 13 Solar Eclipse at 21.57 Scorpio, which falls in my 12th house. Unlike transits, eclipses move clockwise around the chart instead of counterclockwise. And so eclipses in the 1st and 7th houses – often a cycle of greater than usual activity – are naturally followed by eclipses in the 12th and 6th houses, where we deal with the fallout from all that commotion.
I’m a stubborn Leo, and it practically takes a tranquilizer dart to slow me down. Or, apparently, an eclipse in powerful, deeply feeling Scorpio. I don’t even want to tell you how much I cried over my neighbor’s poor cat, who lived just long enough to spent one last day with his owner. I adored Amos, but even so, my response was a bit more intense than it should have been. It seemed to belong to a different species of grief, something older and deeper that should have been healed a long time ago.
Eclipses in Scorpio can tap into fathomless wellsprings of emotion, much of it old and painful. Where do you have a backlog of emotional energy that needs to be discharged? Where have you taken a particular course of action as far as it can reasonably go? Where is life ready to break you down and build you back up, stronger this time?
With Saturn also in Scorpio, the scorpion’s house in your chart pinpoints not only where change is coming in your life, but where it is likely to be lasting. (Don’t know how to find Scorpio in your chart? See this blog post.) Not every crisis or setback in life forces a serious and lasting reevaluation; most of them we simply survive the best we can, then move along as quickly as possible. But the eclipses of the coming two years, particularly the ones in Scorpio, mean business. Something in you is being cracked open, and you might be a little freaked out by the goblins that come leaping out. But as scary as it is to think that you’ve been carrying all that stuff around, isn’t it infinitely better to have it out of there and in the open?
The nature of Scorpio is that once you’re in a relationship, a home, a persona, a career, looking after a friend’s pet – you’re all in. But while there may be no limit to your passions and compassion, Saturn in Scorpio challenges you to learn how to avoid being completely overwhelmed by your feelings – by learning how to let go, and by understanding the limits of being human.
© 2012 April Elliott Kent
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