Notes on Astrology

View Original

A Note on... Moon / Pluto and Eating Disorders

Psychology and astrology overlap in such profound ways sometimes.  I often hear people who don't have any firm "belief" in astrology say that it's just another way for people to find meaning in a crazy world.  It's true, astrology offers, in my opinion, unparalleled insight into the human condition.  And like psychology, years and years of careful study and practice on a clinical level will only get you so close to having all the answers.  No one has all the answers, which is why a strong spirituality is vital regardless of what medium of interpretive tool you use.  There is nothing to believe in with astrology - it is a tool with fairly exact and specific implementation.  

So this brings me to the topic of eating disorders and how we can see evidence of potential for this to manifest in a natal chart.  Most clinicians agree that for many young women (and men) there is a strong link to parental influence, typically maternal, and the home environment that provide the fertile soil for issues with food.  We know eating disorders to be strongly tied to issues of self-harm, poor self-perception, perfectionism, and anxiety disorders.  One of the prevailing theories is that home environments and/or parents who are particularly controlling/smothering have poor boundaries with their children.  They essentially infiltrate the child's psyche and exert such control and pressure on the child that the child must turn inward to find relief.  In the very limited landscape of childhood, there are not many other places you can go or things you can control in your environment that your parents don't have a say in.  One of the exceptions to this would be food and choosing to or not choosing to eat.  

When the child realizes that they can seek the perfection their parents and our culture demands by limiting their intake of the very thing that gives them life we are talking about a very profound and deep wound to the psyche that has found its maladaptive salve.  

Enter Astrology to paint a vivid picture of just how this plays out.  Our natal Moon is our emotional center and how and where we find our soul's sustenance.  This can also literally mean what we eat for comfort and vitality.  The Moon also describes our home environment and our parents - in particular our mother.  Pluto in hard aspect to Moon is "the controlling mother".  This, for women, will manifest as a deep feeling of being imperfect in the eyes of the mother, feeling pressured and forced to submit to her will.  In many of these cases it is Pluto's (Mom's) envy of the child (Moon) that causes this overbearing, critical behavior, though this may not always be a conscious choice.  The child's response to this is to seek both perfection and freedom from the oppression by denying the body food and/or cycling through periods of bingeing and purging.  This allows the child to feel a sense of empowerment and control in an environment that has robbed them of it.  Much like an addiction, once the pattern of behavior is in place it is difficult to break (there are neurobiological explanations for this that are beyond the scope of this discussion).  

For men, we see this manifest less in issues with food (though the above can hold true for them as well) and more as very problematic relationships with women. They will grow to see women as a threat to their autonomy or as emotional vampires, much like mother.  This leaves them prone to conflicts with women in their life, or an overt desire to control the women in their environment,  through intimidation, bullying, and sometimes violence/ lashing out.  They will take mother's criticism of them and externalize it onto other women, an unconscious way of standing up to the mother who exerted so much control in their childhood.  If they have not found a way to externalize that pressure they will continue to attract/be attracted to women who are overbearing and controlling, just like mother.  

As always, there may be outlets in the chart to funnel this energy in more healthy ways.  The whole chart must be read and interpreted to get the full story of how these behaviors manifest.  Other placements that come to mind are Moon/Saturn, a significant amount of Capricorn placements, and/or an afflicted 2nd and/or 4th House.