"The Gross Stuff Makes You Grow": South Node Eclipse in Scorpio

This time last year I went through a devastating break-up. I felt completely isolated, alone, rejected, and abandoned.

My lesson was to reach out for support from friends and family. I packed a bag and lived with my parents for a month, binge-watched the Harry Potter movies, and ate a lot of beef stew to regulate my nervous system the best I could.

This year, the typical Scorpio season themes of death, re-birth, letting go, and composting, is intensified by the south node’s presence alongside this new moon.

Eclipses can be thought of as fated changes.

If you’re familiar with tarot, I think of The World card. Things are happening, cycles are completing, and there’s nothing to do, but let it happen or be dragged.

This year, I’m having to let go of my home for the last two years.

My landlord is kicking me out, so he can “renovate,” aka put a new dishwasher in, call it “updated,” and make more money.

When I first got the news I sobbed. Like the definition of sobbing.

But instead of denying the reality and not looking at it, I let myself grieve.

 I met my emotions.

My best friend taught me the difference between self-pity and grieving.

Years ago, I went through yet another devastating break up. The first. The original.

When I arrived and she saw the messy, blubbering state I was in, she gave me a helpful time frame to be in self-pity and “why me?” mode.

After that, of course she gave me tons of space to grieve and sob uncontrollably and we watched “He’s Just Not That into You” – quite possibly one the worst, most toxic movie/book to ever absorb about dating and relationships.

But I experienced an internal shift through my friend’s help.

My mental/emotional state was no longer based within constant rumination of “why/how did this happen?” and instead it was rooted in “wow, this sucks that this is happening.”

It’s really easy to get lost in the “why/how” of a situation and get stuck there. You’re not weak and there’s nothing wrong with you if that’s what you’re experiencing right now.

It’s human and natural.

That’s why it’s important to get help when we’re there, work with a therapist or coach, reach out to friends and family, and get the support you need.

At the time, it was really healing to be supported in that way. It got me out of denial and into acceptance of the reality of the situation.

We can cause ourselves so much more pain when we desperately try to deny that something is happening.

This can lead to repressing our true feelings and emotions, and it can actually make us physically sick.

And that’s exactly what happened to me with the devastating break-up I experienced last year.

Healing is non-linear, amiright?

When we experience loss, death, trauma of any kind, it can bring up not just grief from this very moment, but all the grief we’ve experienced in the past too.

With last year’s break-up I was initially in denial. I spent too long there, and my emotions came back like a rubber-band.

I was so hit so hard by my repressed sadness that I couldn’t do my usual activities like running or climbing. I couldn’t eat, which meant I wasn’t sleeping.

Scorpio season has a way of surfacing all the “ugly” things we don’t want to face.

Scorpio reliably encourages…forces…us to confront the things/feelings we’d rather avoid.

This past Tuesday, October 25th, we had a new moon solar eclipse in Scorpio near the south node, and Venus was at the heart of it.

In other words, Venus was exactly conjunct the sun at the moment of the eclipse. This is also known as a “cazimi.”

This week has been full of intense movement and I can feel the energy shifting, which sounds vague and amorphous…and it is.

I’m experiencing that moment where you know change is happening, and there’s not much to do, but let it happen.

That’s kind of literally what eclipses are!

This is especially true for south node eclipses. It’s really no accident that I feel sort of guided, or like I’m floating along and life is…happening. 

Sometimes we’re equipped and feel supported in moving with the shifting tides, and sometimes we’re completely caught off-guard and changing is the very last thing we want.

As a scorpio moon/venus/pluto I’m typically experiencing the latter, but you know you’re healing when things that would’ve thrown you off course in the past aren’t anymore.

Sometimes, we need to be in self-pity and “why me?” mode.

But when it comes to me experiencing the greed of my landlord, I allow myself to hold everything at once.

This isn’t fair. This is so morally fucked. Chaz can suck it. I hate capitalism.

And while I acknowledge these thoughts and feelings I’m also going to resource myself by doing the following:

• Remembering that ultimately I’m safe because I know I’ll be able to find another place (I recognize this as a huge privilege resulting from the identities I hold)

• Recognizing that I do have time and this is not a crisis although it may have felt like that initially

• Keep moving with the feelings of grief, letting them ebb and flow, let myself cry when the tears want to flow

• Embody the Queen of Cups who knows that a river is never the same river twice and that change is inevitable

• Remind myself that this apartment is absolutely ideal, which means that it’s possible to experience an ideal living situation again (instead of thinking in terms of scarcity, i.e. I’ve experienced the ideal and that means another ideal doesn’t exist)

If you’re going through grief is it possible that even though you’ve lost something/someone/an experience that it doesn’t mean this is the last time you’ll be able to experience that again?

Is it possible that this isn’t the only kind of love, safety, warmth, joy, happiness, fulfillment, etc that you’ll ever come across again?

Is it possible that there doesn’t need to be a comparison or hierarchy between relationships/experiences/events past, present, or future?

Is it possible it might just look different? And is it possible that it’s okay that this is true? And if it’s okay, is it possible to still be sad, hurt, lonely, and feel grief about it?

I hope that if you’re experiencing some big changes, transitions, loss, or death that you’ll let yourself feel whatever it is that’s coming up for you, reach out if you need support, and remind yourself that ultimately on the other side of death is re-birth.

It’s like compost and as Susan T. Chang of Fortune’s Wheelhouse says, “The gross stuff makes you grow.”

I have faith in your capacity to hold the gross stuff, which will eventually add beauty, depth, and lushness to your already growing garden.