Depression, Melancholy and Potatoes

I am not a scholar, I merely speak from experience. I use the term to describe what I have experienced in the past and have seen people experience.

I would narrow the experience of depression to an overwhelming feeling of psychic pressure forcing one not only to feel unhappy but also to lose sight of the light while at the same time experiencing an inability to act and produce meaningful change. More figuratively it would be like mental-emotional quicksand or a bog. 

Depression for a day is perfectly fine and natural. It is part of how the elements move. There are muddy days and airy bright days. Depression for two days may indicate there is an illness brewing or an elemental imbalance (as described below) or a strongly stressful situation present. More than three days and I would say one needs external help. 

Going through it alone can take a stressful situation into a low-grade depression that can suck the joy out of life for months or years on end. Unfortunately, our level of consciousness may be so low and our perception of our own states so fuzzy or distorted that we may only realize we are depressed long after we have already been depressed for some time.

When depressed we fail to realize that action is the first step out of depression. It is a devilish state because depression justifies non-action in its roots, on a deep emotional/mental level, and thus the depression persists feeding on its own poison. The depressed person is convinced he/she cannot do anything new. It is a projected oppression that is taken as truth.

There are countless theories about the causes of depression. Is it chemical? Is it karma? Is it a bad habit? Is it money? Is it politics? 

It is probably a combination of issues in most cases. I can share some observations from the perspective of the elements. Maybe you can take some practical ideas from it. Because when it comes to depression “practical” is what is usually missing.

Earth and its fruits.

I have done five horary chart readings in the last month for people who were displaying some degree of depression. All five showed either Jupiter or Saturn in Capricorn as the cause of the misfortune. That is a severe excess of earth. Coldness and dryness. Immobility. Inability to act. Lack of motivation. A loss of love for life. Boredom. Melancholy (Black Choler = Earth).

Now, some of these people love eating potatoes which is one of the many foods that cause people to go cold and dry. Smoking weed too. And drinking coffee too. Or eating beef. To add insult to injury they do not exercise and have a sedentary life.

Should we be surprised then that in Winter some people who are in fact poisoning themselves with earth (the element) feel depressed and unable to act in their best interest?

I could stop here. Maybe I have given you the medicine already. Maybe not.

In order to know for sure a horary chart about one’s condition interpreted by a competent astrologer is necessary. (Not all depressed people have an excess of earth.) But an earth excess is typical in depression. One can also see a competent classically trained Oriental doctor who does pulse diagnosis and who can come to the same, or very close, diagnoses to horary.

Still, people do not get depressed just because of an imbalance in the elements. That is one dimension of the problem, an important one to be addressed. Often there are other dimensions.

Enter: The Devil

The extra benefit of horary astrology is that it will put a spotlight on house 12, if it is active. And it usually is, 99% of the time in cases of depression. If the mind has turned against itself yet another tool is required to deal with the problem. No medication, no surgery, no praying, no witchcraft, no energetic healing, no good wishes from friends, no miracle can change that unless it is the miracle of becoming conscious of house 12.

House 12 thrives in darkness, in not being seen or dealt with. Consciousness is light. Light obliterates house 12, in a good way. Finally, we understand that the problem is not out there and thus we can have a conversation with the devil from a position of authority rather than from blind subservience. Time to re-write that contract.

House 12 does a fine job of compounding depression: bad diet, lack of exercise, self-deprecating or self-destructing thinking, stubbornness, blaming, plain old ignorance, and lack of self-awareness, etc. Addiction to alcohol and other drugs is the tip of the iceberg and is merely a symptom of a mind that has gone significantly out of balance.

Speaking of the devil…

The effects of self-undoing (house 12) begin to feel present early in life. Self-undoing grows and grows, more or less for different people yet shaped rather faithfully to the seven known patterns of house 12.

At some point in life, we may realize we spent 20, 30, or 40 years saying and doing stuff that did not really belong in us. We were not being true to ourselves. We lived too long being true to some imaginary picture of ourselves. Out of fear, we took the wrong profession, the wrong partner, the wrong ideas, and the wrong road and stuck with them for too long.

I do not mean “wrong” in an absolute way. From the proper scale, there is nothing wrong. I am not philosophizing. I am pointing at the law of cause and effect. There is a more truthful part of ourselves and there is a lying part of ourselves. House 12 is the lying house. The house where our imaginary picture of ourselves is brought up. If we feed the lie for too long and starve the truth we invariable will go through some kind of depression. Depression is like an alarm for the soul.