Sedna Goes Retrograde / a Personal Note on Suicide

 Winter fog in the valley of the Upa River in

East Bohemia (photo credit: Karelj, Jan 2007)

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We've all heard the stories. Someone will kill themselves and someone else says they were just trying to get back at so-and-so.

That never made sense to me.

Yes, I understand the wanting to inflict pain on whoever 'so-and-so' is. They want that person to feel pain, to understand the depth of their pain and to not ever, ever forget it.

But why take your own life? Committing suicide as a gesture of vengeance has always struck me as illogical. By its nature, vengeance desires that moment of gloating and saying *'See? I TOLD you so!'*

And suicide can never provide that.

Then it struck me. Such suicides aren't vengeance - they're disappointment. They're the ultimate gesture of futility when someone becomes overwhelmed by the painful realization that they're never going to be able to get that 'other' person to understand how much their priorities and choices really mean. It isn't about hatred, it's about realizing that you've invested your love, your belief in someone who doesn't understand their own value. Someone who doesn't understand how valuable they are and the value of their actions.

In other words, what 'being important' to someone else can truly mean.

How many of us treat others so cavalierly, thinking only of our pleasures, our convenience, our priorities...we think it a strength and pleasure to pursue our path, totally negating how our callous disregard for how important we really are will affect someone else.

Where we fail is in valuing the appearance of our Self we fail our greater potential.

And what a fatal flaw that is. 
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Dwarf planet Sedna will go retrograde at 12:31 p.m. (UT/+0) this Friday, August 24th at 23 Taurus. That means its station will have just begun early on August 22nd and extend through the 26th. After that, Sedna will be retrograde until February 5, 2013, when it will go direct literally only minutes prior to Ceres doing likewise.

That makes this whole August-February period a time about (Ceres) planning, pruning, and nurturing - of self, of our ability to make plans, of those plans we've made which we're now working to bring to fruitful fruition. Though often taken as a symbol of the riches of the harvest Ceres actually symbolizes everything that it takes get a small seed from the palm of your hand to that harvest. Ceres represents all that planning, the effort, the watchfulness, the care which is required to raise the plant to crop, the child to adulthood, the nation to economic health and prosperous peace.

Ceres is the idea taking root and coming to fruition, a relationship which once well met can yet encounter terrible storms and periods of drought.

Which makes it rather poignant in combination with Sedna, a symbol of all that happens in our life to reveal to us what isn't working because we're 'clinging' to some preconceived notion.

All this brings us to Taurus. As a sign, Taurus asks that we make something better of ourselves with every passing day so that at the end of all things we achieve a level of satisfaction with the human we've grown to be. Like all signs Taurus grows, evolves and matures degree by degree from the simple and personal to the more encompassing and - hopefully - connective, productive and ultimately satisfying.

That seems particularly in sync with Sedna's station retrograde. As the sign which sets all the groundwork for whatever power we will gain in life, it is through all things Taurus and in terms of our Taurean values and sense of security, pride, self-respect and worth which fosters worthiness...it is through the testing and risking of those parts of our Self, through the successes and ego blows, the intimacy of love and supercharged tussles of anger...it is through just such gratifications and disappointments that we mature and ultimately grow to be satisfied.

With Taurus, it's all easy when its just about us and our 'me and mine.' 

Indeed, the tests only start when we realize that others need us. Or value us. The more inconvenient the moment, the emotions involved, the need, the greater the test - and potential for growth.

For those who believe that those with the greater ability are tested mightily, we should take it seriously when life's responsibilities and human needs call out to us.

For only then do we emerge from our cocoon of personal regard into the true Taurean light of having to confront our own capacity and self worth in the light of what we could do against what we're doing.

That part isn't so easy, no. And with Sedna at 23 Taurus and Algol at 26 Taurus, it's surely easier to be entitled to whatever it is you think so important.

Sedna moves incredibly slowly. One orbit around our Sun takes Sedna over eleven thousand years. So Sedna transits and Sedna's clockwork functions take a very long time to function and come to fruition. Considering the story, things can get very stormy along the way. We can feel abandoned or situations may leave us uncared for and on our own. Sedna is all which makes us want the nice things and all the fear which tries to resist those life forces which want us to let go of what we want for ourselves in favor of giving of our potential.

As over the next few years Sedna closes in on Algol's position, the selfish, the entitled, the greedy and the willfully blind will surely exile many a needy soul.

Some of them will die.

But on the other side of this coin, those who will let go, who will accept their own ability without all the social, societal or dictated trappings...those who decide they will deal with others from a basis of what they respect on a human level and not as a matter of preference or appearance - those people will advance.

And on the basis of their willingness, many of us will benefit.

Again, there are no quick fixes here. Astrologically, the long periods of strain or peace in our lives and world can be timed to how long it take Sedna to pass through the orb to any given degree.

But that is an opportunity. And as we become willing to 'take the plunge' and do what we are capable of instead of what we'd like to come easily, so our opportunities become advances in our lives.

If you'd like to read more about Sedna as a symbol, check the feature article list on the sidebar here on the blog. But the part of the myth which seems plainly important here, as Sedna turns away from Algol yet again is the request, the urging, the understanding deep down inside that we need to let go and try. Sedna speaks to our 'comfort zone,' Taurus speaks to personal creature comforts and Algol is the embodied symbol of the responding energetic. So whatever that involves, will you confront your Self with what you need to do or the person you really should be...or are you simply afraid or unwilling to risk anything, be it as simple as a moment of your time?

Since we know this Sedna cycle leads to a point where Sedna and Ceres sync, and that they will do so in a semi-sextile with Sedna in Taurus and Ceres in Gemini it doesn't matter where we go now, life is going to lead us to some uncomfortable positions.

Like other objects which cycle through the Kuiper Belt, Sedna represents those moments, situations, events and qualities which, through evoking our innermost sense of human vulnerability and the need to be vulnerable teach us how there's more to being a person than we thought.

However much we know...there's always more to learn.

About suicide, it is a truly terrible reality. And no, this doesn't mean that this is a moment when we should expect mass suicidality. Far from it, actually. Sedna's turn to retrograde, especially at 23 Taurus is an opportunity. Given that 23 Taurus is a degree which by (3rd decanate) definition is about input from others and our world, if your chart is aspected by this station things will happen to shake you out of some sort of (Sedna) complacency, some (Sedna) tendency to cling to the familiar and what you want instead of what would ultimately empower you.

Sometimes it's what you learn to do. Sometimes Sedna is about learning that you can do it.

By degree, this station focuses where the reliable and fallible meet. Where we may well experience the surprising difference between just those qualities in our life...or in our soul.

No matter what happens, there will always be some who will always refuse to risk or look past what's convenient and comfortable to their reality. Or how they affect others.

We call that selfish. And the very kind of maturing moments which get us to stop thinking in terms of 'me' and get us to think about what we are capable of which will cause us to respect who we are...that's Sedna.

As for those who will not see and will not let go, such people may not commit suicide - but in a sense they're already dead. Which is also sad.

Sad also is how such people often know full well that they're condemning someone else to own the futility which results from their refusing to care.

Suicide is sometimes said to be an incredibly selfish act. Maybe in considering that we understand why such people polarize each other.

After all, like does...and always will attract like.

Here's to doing something better with our consciousness - and our lives.

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