transit stories: tracking cyclical depression

Images from: Sekka Zusetsu: Snow crystal drawing by Feudal lord in Edo era - Doi Toshitsura 

Folks who suffer from cyclical depression, might take a look at the sign on the cusp of the 8th and 12th house in their natal chart. 8th and 12th house are traditional houses of pain and mental health issues. If these houses contain some natal planets, you are probably 'predisposed' to struggle with depression or other mental health issues. When the season of these signs begins, your 8th or 12th house gets activated. 

Find your own personalized depression season

For example, Scorpio season just begun: if Scorpio is on the cusp of your 8th/12th, you are probably going through a harder time than usual. The element of the sign can tell you more about 'the flavour' of your depression. Water signs, for example, have the tendency to withdraw and suffer in silence, while fire signs may get more irritated and agitated. Earth signs might experience the original meaning of melancholia: as a very dry and numbing experience. Air signs might get extremely anxious and caught up in their thoughts, intellectualize their struggles, or start to overwork, overshare, oversocialize when they feel bad. Air signs and fire signs might be more likely to have the-rollercoaster-of-emotions-type of experience or manic episodes. 

My Sun is in Cancer is in the 8th house. The summer months are hard for me every year. The 8th house activates everything that had to do with grief, shame and sadness. Since the Sun is in this house, this tendency extends all the way through Leo season during August, since the Sun rules Leo. It is my personal depression season. Since it is a water sign, the experience unfolds itself in silence. 

The 12th house is traditionally a very difficult house. It a house of crisis and trauma. So when there is a accent on this house in your birth chart, you might take some more care of yourself during this season, and know that it will pass eventually. 

Seasonal depression

What we call seasonal depression, stems from the observation that more people feel down in winter. This has to do with the fact that our winter months are ruled by Saturn. Saturn is the harshest and coldest planet. Capricorn and Aquarius season is more difficult for everyone in the Northern hemisphere due to the dark weather circumstances. This is  a collective experience. Folks who have Capricorn or Aquarius on the 8th or 12th, will go through their more intense peaks of depression during winter. 

Can astrology save us?

My opinion is that astrology is not a tool to fix us. It helps to get  more insight in our circumstances and the context of our life, and the cyclicality of things. In the end it might help to accept yourself and the reality of life. This gives me comfort, even though I can understand why this frame of mind doesn't 'work' for everyone. Astrology makes room for many perspectives, and shows there are many frames of mind that fit all kinds of people. 

I think the challenge when it comes to grief, is to let it exist. And that means that you have to let you exist with it too: don't get rid of yourself. You have a right to be here in the world, even in grief. Pain is a very healthy and normal reaction to a complex and difficult world. Being disabled is ok. We don't have to try to get rid of our vulnerabilities. When I can track my seasons of depression, it comforts me a bit to know that I've been there before, and I will survive this time too. Or like the poet Robert Grenier says: if rain it's raining. 

Notes

Not in every case in which you have a strongly accentuated 8th or 12th house, are you prone to depression. The 12th house is 'the place where mental illness exists'. That place can be you. Or it can be, for example, a hospital. Some astrologers believe that working with people in crisis is *karmicly* more 'elevated' than being ill yourself (bullshit!). I don't believe in the dichotomy between someone who needs care and being a caregiver. 

Books about depression that I liked:

- The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression Paperback by Andrew Solomon 

- The Crying Book by Heather Christle