Dear Mystic,
For years, whenever I need solace, or to work something out, or to just get through a very bad patch, I have kept a diary. I’m not a bad writer, and they are well-written if I say so myself (shades of Samantha Brick creeping in..) But I have a problem that I think you have a solution for, or at least an angle on.
I have been having an extremely long Pluto transit. Non-stop Pluto on all of my personal transits. To say that it was was difficult would be quite an understatement. I was in exile and completely without support for all my son’s early childhood, and very lonely for most of it.
I kept a diary throughout these years, recording my thoughts, my dreams and wishes, and sometimes, the things my boy said or did. Up until now I’ve kept them. They also contain quite a lot of reference to a romance I had with a man I have been in love with (and he with me) for almost 12 years now.
We couldn’t get it together for various reasons and then we did finally get together and it was a disaster. This man was always waiting in the wings, he watched me get married, fall pregnant, try to keep the marriage working, get left…and he was always there but could not deal with the intense amount of neediness – and I couldn’t deal with his absence – for his business or for his family.
Anyway – in the end I ran away and he took up with another woman.
Fast forward 5 years. My child is happy and healthy. We are settled, after a disastrous re-entry back into my old life. And late last year, this man contacted me again, and slowly, tenuously, and with great mindfulness about what went before but also what we mean to each other, we are trying again, not forgetting but certainly not dwelling. The honesty has been amazing.
For 6 weeks a pile of diaries has lain next to my back door, ready to be removed to the recycling bin. Tonight is bin night. I shall put these out, these records of the toughest time of my life, filled to the brim with tears, desperation, and many many yearnings for the man who is now in my life.
Mostly, they are full of the dreams that one day I might be in a different situation and feel differently about myself and my prospects. And also that one day he might be in a different situation and it might work. All of this has come to fruition. I feel the closing act would be to put those diaries in the bin and say goodbye to all that pain and move on.
And yet I feel like I am somehow negating or betraying myself, and letting my diaries down. Maybe I need to keep them so I can remember where I came from. But I never want to think like that again, and we are trying so hard to not keep bringing up the past, and we are mostly succeeding, whilst slowly dealing with the old wounds and acknowledging them. So much of what went on between us was about lack of support and lack of understanding, and we have ruled a line under it.
What to do? Are these bad Feng Shui? where should they go? When I see them, I wince, but when I try to put them in the bin, my hand falters and I remember when they were the only things I could talk to. What do you think?
Stray Sagittarian.
Dear Stray Sagittarian,
Congrats on having emerged from your Pluto passages wiser and more psychically robust! That’s a huge achievement. And wow, what a history with this guy. But okay you are asking a Mars in Virgo person whether or not you should throw something out. My answer is always going to be yes!
And if they are reminders of a sad and painful part of your life that you have now successfully evolved through and beyond, totally bin them. They’re surely served their remedial purpose in real time, right?
However, I do get the diary thing. Personally, I always have but one diary and when it’s finished, I sit down with a glass of wine, read it all through, make some connections and then burn it or shred it.
I hang onto some for longer than others for reasons I now see are because I haven’t fully integrated whatever I was putting down on paper. And there is also something to be said for keeping useful notes re particularly striking dreams or intuitive hunches and so forth – some things don’t manifest for years so it can be good to check back. Then again, you could transfer those to searchable spreadsheet?
Dark Moons are always good for this sort of diary-analysis, re-read and edit/discard process. Score some solo space, read them through, wow yourself with o.m.g insights and then burn/shred them. Fire is elementally satisfying but shredding is safer and just as effective, privacy wise.
Alternatively, keep them as a chronicle of your history but put them in a locked box. Either way, it’s time for them to removed from the recycling pile.
F.Y.I. I once knew a Leo who wrote a diary strictly for in case she became famous and biographers needed something to trawl through – it was full of name dropping, profound thoughts and being moved to think about Seneca after multiple orgasms.
I think she lost interest when everything turned digital in the 90s but it was a piece of work for a while there. She actually is quite well-known now but not to the degree that biographers would seek to extract her diaries.
But what does everyone else think Stray Sagittarius should do with her Pluto diaries???
Image: Leonora Carrington
Dearest Stary Sagg,
As a fellow Sagg who has gone through similar hell and back with a Druggie Scorp-fab guy-gorgeous to the max-made my heat sing when the evil twin was not present(i.e when on heroin). I too have kept diaries since age 13 and I have all of mine. I tend to keep them as archives of important facts and dates too. So when the family want to when so and so fell off the perch or when so and so got hatched, matched or dispatched they ask me. I also put bits of newspaper articles, pictures that resonate with me etc. Like you I have had such an amazing journey and am stronger for it.
Should you keep them? Should you not? I ahve asked myself the same question and I think my journals are tied in with my…is it identitiy? I am not sure what the right word is here…but what I mean is that I wanted my grandbabies or great grandbabies to know what I was like IF they were interested. I am one of the last in a long grand clan that I railed against, was the black sheep the wild one etc. However, as no one has preserved the history I feel I am the caretaker of our history for suture generations. Unfortunately some of the staid boring and “propah” one’s will not like my spin as I delight in airingthe old skeletons in cupboards!! ; >
Also some very personal things that I did not want the family to know, I wrote in French as none of them speak French! I also wrote in riddles that only I would understand-certain symbols depicting vertain situations etc. It must be my SCorp Rising that makes me want to be so covert!
I wish you well and cheer you along sister Sagg…keep going strong…you are a winner and a conquerer…you will make the right decision once you ruminate on the loving advice given by all. xox : >
This story moved me a lot
It TERRIFIED me because it sounds like my situation and I can’t be a LZ
The new moon in 5th is my break, my fresh start …but when I hear this I know it could happen to me too…
Dear SS,
From one Sadge to another: these Pluto transits are beyond difficult. What a phenomenal job you have done to survive without becoming nasty or bitter! That’s cool and a great reminder of how it can be done and done right.
Now, keep rocking your Sadge and move on building on the super solid foundation you have clearly built for yourself, brick by brutally honest brick. If a symbol of all that hard won wisdom is required, take a photo of your journals and keep it before you bin the journals themselves.
All my love, your fellow transit traveler,
m
I burned mine earlier this year. After multiple pluto transits I reemerged. The diaries seemed useless.
But I kept seperate ones journaling my pregnancies and my kids lives. I kept them. Those are for them.
That’s a good idea, having two.
I think in your situation, at this point you should let them go. It sounds like the lessons are embedded well in and you have no need for them. Congrats on your post Plutonic life, I’m about to go there again, I’m always interested when people post here about awful transits how that planet manifests in their chart.
I have a box of them ranging from age 13-32, the 28-31 years are the ones I’m having issues with. The Saturn Return, Pluto/ASC, Uranus/ASC, eternal Saturn in the 7th House years. On one level they are horrifying and I want them gone, gone but the sexual shenanigans are hilarious, I might want reminding one day. They’re highly classified, that’s the main issue I have with them, the thought of people reading them makes me feel nauseous. Strangely I have no desire to really keep one at the moment.
I have no desire to keep one at all now.
My dairies from 8 to 19 were stored at my parents and accidentally got thrown out.
I was relieved.
No need to revisited teenage sexual exploits. ugh.
Dear Stray Saggo,
I identify with you very closely on this. I am also a writer (now make a living doing it) and I also kept years of journals during a dark 8 year relationship with the father of my amazing daughter. They encompassed many upheavals in my life; all of them dark. Addictions, break-ups, infidelities, suspicions, nervous breakdowns, misguided tarot readings and logging of dreams and nightmares. The last year we were together I stored them in a box in the garage that was my workshop. I knew I would never be able to look at them again, much less actually read them. When we finally split, I lost the house and tossed everything that was in that garage and it felt AMAZING. Since then I have been a habitual tosser. I keep nothing but the most important, joyous pieces of my daughter’s life. I can’t imagine dragging those things around with me each time we move house, or worse – my daughter is old enough to find them and read them now. You don’t ever want your child to see you that weak. She sees me as a strong, independent individual (I hope) and I don’t ever want otherwise. Being privy to things I thought and wrote during that time in my life could be very damaging to her own self esteem as a young woman and a person. I would imagine the same could happen to your son.
So, to chime in with the rest of the thread voices – BURN THEM.
Start new ones.
Yeah, start something new. You have the backstory now, time for chapter one. x
Yes, I also have years and years of diaries. Although realistically I don’t see myself going back through them to mine them for gems of wisdom, and I don’t see myself typing them up so they are on a computer (more likely moldering away in the garage for another 20 years) I could not throw them out. Of all things of mine, they would be the things I would probably feel most lacking, if they were to go. And yet, there are heaps of them and I wouldn’t know if there were half missing, I have no idea what state they are in. But to have no record anywhere of all that suffering, and may I say transmuted into genius writing at least in my own memory, would almost be: why did I go through all that?
And of course, as a Multiple Leo, I hope and expect that someone will go through them one day to realize what a damn fine amazing person I was, that they never knew. Maybe not my biographer, but at least kids or grandkids.
I have to say, I wish my parents had kept journals (maybe they did) but to be able to get inside their heads and understand what they went through, would be a very profound gift if I did come across them. I would be fine with even reading journals only after the author has died, but you want to know that somebody saw the intimate corners of your life and has the chance to understand what you went through….. Oh and not all the diaries are so depressing either, but sadly I’ve got no one to name drop, unless that is my friends turn out to become famous.
but – I think all my Leo aspects would never let me burn them.
I think my Leo Rising agrees with you, and after re-reading what MM wrote above about her Leo friend writing for potential biographers, I realised that I, too, write in a sense for future readers.
I rarely, if ever, look back through my journal entries. Once in a purple moon, when I just open a random page, only to close it again and replace it back in its drawer. I use digital journals these days. But even then I don’t look back.
I write to process, to think, to chronicle. I find that these days, I write less and less to vent. That’s probably a good sign. Then again, I probably vented enough over the past decade to suffice me the rest of my life!
Reading all the different comments and perspectives coming in here is fantastic!
Crowd source advice and therapy!
I agree wholeheartedly. Reading thru this thread has given me so much to think about and has provided a lot of comfort actually, knowing that I’m not alone. I’m another Archer who is trying to phoenix from the ashes of endless Pluto transits (Pluto finally off my Venus and into the 8th house). I too am wrestling with what I need to keep from my past (much of it is art in my case and objects from loved ones who died during Pluto’s tour).
I think for myself, there are some things that I know I am ready to burn. And the things that I’m not certain about, the things I think maybe I can transmute and use for higher purposes, I will box those up and set aside for now… and someday I will know intuitively what to do with them.
RIght now, I feel the fog is starting to clear a bit, that I’m viewing things with a deeper level of understanding, but I don’t entirely trust this new perspective either. How do you know, really, whether you’re just caught up in another illusion or whether you are finally viewing the truth?
I have never felt so certainly uncertain in my life. I think that’s Pluto’s legacy for me.
The answer I have to offer is probably infuriatingly ‘zen’: You never know, till you know.
If I don’t know, I keep going, knowing that I have to continue living till I do know.
How I survive without going mad is by accepting, nay, programming myself to accept that nothing is certain anyway.
Everything is in eternal flux anyway, how does one know? What do we know? What we know now may be wrong later anyway? So why all the emphasis on knowing?
I believe the answer to that question lies in our culturally conditioned ideas of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. We are so afraid, so afraid of mistakes, wrong steps, pain.
What if we live like pain is a given and that there are no mistakes, only experiences? Everything is worth experiencing, worth living.
Where you are right now, be grateful for everything that you have experienced. Learn what you can, worry not about what you cannot just yet. There’s no timetable, no deadline, no slave driver behind you.
I think when you drop the fear of ‘wrong’ and suffering and just accept anything and everything that comes as an opportunity, as a wizening experience, as a blessing, uncertainty will no longer faze you. In fact, it will excite you.
And then you will truly be alive.
That’s how I choose to believe and live anyway. Works for me so far.
Must seem very devil-may-care for a Capricorn Sun, Mars & Mercury with Leo Rising LOL.
The fact that this message is coming to me from a Cap Sun, Mars and Mercury with Leo rising makes absolute universal all-sorts-of freaky-woo_ woo sense to me, as it’s my Cap Venus that’s been experiencing Plutonic pulverization and the two greatest losses to me during that cycle were both Leo suns.
What stunning wisdom. Thank you.
I was going to write a separate post about the diaries ‘being you’ – it’s like throwing yourself away. Then I saw your post. Agree with you. Whatever are our normal habits in life, intuition should always overrule them. In this case, the mere fact that Stray Sag is conflicted reveals that a voice is whispering ‘now is not the time’. It may never be.
I never bin my diaries. They express better than anything who I was and what I was living at a point in time. Yes it was in the past but rather than being viewed as now invalid, they reveal how much I have evolved. Surely something to celebrate.
We record our lives in images and pictures. How beautiful that the written word accompany them too. Where would we be if we didn’t have Ann Frank’s diaries? And those of many others that have proved invaluable portraits on a time and place and events.
However, we live in an age where ‘the past’ is viewed as disposable as an outdated electronic device. It isn’t. It doesn’t mean we need dwell on it. What it does mean is that unless we are aware of it, we can never learn from it.
Thankyou so much fro the responses, it was me who asked the original question. I really like the replies – especially the sense that I don’t actually need to hold onto them, to read them again and again, to absorb their lessons…I AM the walking lesson. I think I needed to hear that, that I cannot somehow fall down the rabbit-hole again. I don’t need to ever read any of the stuff I wrote about the man, we are together now and we are doing our best. I don’t need to think those thoughts. Perhaps, like above, our relationship is a result of our non-relationship before. And I do wonder who is the leopard whose spots won’t change – it might have been him but it was more often me – and my spots are definitely a different colour now! It’s not always the bloke that’s at fault – in this scenario it was very much equal as to who hurt whom and how!
Yes, I think tomorrow night with a glass of good red wine i will go through them, copy out anything that I wish to keep, the sayings of my three-year-old, the small flashes of daylight in the gloom, and then I will burn them because they are not any more a reflection of who I am, they were a vital step along the way, but I don’t need to keep checking that the step is there.
good decision 🙂
Fuq yeah! Happy phoenixing!!!
I had Pluto cross my IC. You know the trip. Words are cheap. These days, so is the cost of memory. But you….and your ability to regenerate is…are priceless. 🙂
May you and those you love be happier and more peaceful than you ever thought possible!
Best of luck and many blessings for happiness, companionship and love anon. Don’t doubt that we all have a little leopard in us, like our natal chart has all twelve signs.
Have a wonderful eclipse.
You know what, you remember what’s important.
It doesn’t matter whether you burn them, put them in a ‘time capsule’ or keep them in your life.
You can’t lose what you’ve experienced. Those scars stay for life (and over many lifetimes)…
p.s. I have over 20 diaries written from the age of 14 that I keep stored somewhere…
But I also like the idea of burning them…
I’ve been keeping a journal for the past few years during a particularly harrowing period of personal growth. I’m up to Volume 5. I have bequeathed them to my daughter, to be read after my death if she wants to. I’ve told her she will have a few good laughs. I do sit and read through parts of them. It is liberating to see how far along the yellow brick road I have travelled.
As an archer and a dark matter pen wielder I say let your intuition guide you.
If you don’t mind me saying, it appears it may already have spoken as the books were at the back door & upon a new moon.
2nd guessing is natural when saying farewell to a book bound with our words, and perhaps more importantly our feelings, loves/hates etc but I believe these things don’t leave with the ink and paper and a grand sweeping farewell or a rueful teary goodbye. At the point of randomly finding them or deciding to fish them out they are usually long gone and only an echo of oneself or sometimes unrecognisable aspect of self but gone or at least a great deal of the potency is gone.
It’s as if there is a fear or a concern we’ll forget unless we hold on and we may do exactly that, forget, free ourselves and move on or we may rewrite it, in our memories or in our tales of ye olde days. That’s your choice. I suppose it comes down to the intent of why the words were written and whether they still hold that purpose or a new purpose and whether one feels that is then diminished by not having the tangible words accessible. The intangible words will always reform and pour out again should you require them to, yes, not that same but that’s an ‘in the moment thing.’ Suffice to say nothing has left, it’s form changes is all.
I’m one for burning or shredding when the time says it’s time.
Totally agree cleansing. be it ritual, getting them go somewhere private reading them, sob heartfelt tears and angst let the past GO. learn the lessons you’ve learnt. . Out with the old & on with the new. Your thinking about the future & questioning keeping them. It’s a process. Good luck! Xx been through similar.
I recall thinking i would never ever go through anything like the chambers of Hell i had already been through in my first 16 years of life, that i was apparently charmed/preternaturally strong to have survived.
I know that having been through something unusually cruel is no charmed defence against ever suffering again. Now i am emerging from a fresh and very different dimension of difficulty. My life appears to operate very much on Uranian cycles and Pluto being opposite my Sun means constant pull by the shadow and no stone of my own being ever unturned in the search for new identity. I tear myself to pieces to rebuild. I too have looked at the “diaries” (in my case a plethora of random genres of writing and notes) and almost burned them.
I am Mutable. I forget everything i have ever done only to be amazed at a memory i never really forgot, unearthed. I become Nothing in order to become something New, and in the process i AM.
These writings will never be thrown away. There are times they are all that have sustained me. I do not need to look most of the time but when i am rent i can see i have been there before and know this is not a return but a spiral. They can be wrapped and sealed. They can be put away. Maybe one day they can be burnt and the ashes buried with blood and water. But if i have to ask the question, Is it Time? Is it OK? then it probably isn’t…i will know when it is Time, all by myself. And maybe…so will you? Best wishes in your searching xx
such a poetic response. xx
“I am mutable. I forget everything i have ever done” YES..it’s ridiculous how much i agree with this statement.
I agree – burn them tonight! With salt and sage xxx
I think you should keep them….
I’m going to debrief, sort of…. I feel so angry, luckily I’m going to smash balls tonight. Ive had the most intense 3days of work, medical emergencies, that I’ve had in 2years…. Ive been pumped w adrenaline and I hate that Shit…. I’ve felt really supported by most staff I work w, but one ive had probs w from the beginning, proved to me the lack of support today…. And it makes me so angry I have to work w her…. I’m angry the DVD shop has not rung to say the movie I have on hold is there because that’s my switch off, I’m angry because I can’t really talk to any of my friends about my work, its too intense and confidential…. So I’m angry and I’m going to smash it out…..
ohh, that’s no good, freedom ala air. if you really do need to talk to someone, is it an option to find a good therapist for whom confidentiality is a professional standard? or a workplace counsellor? x
Keeping records of you life was something advised by sages in the 80’s, when women writers were emerging in force. Everyone benefits from journaling-diaries, part of your unspoken secret soul in words and a project for some future date to edit them, scan them.
Film makers are always searching for script ideas. Magazine always wanting articles, so hesitation in binning is understandable from a creative point of view, the urge to toss an unhappy past is natural but such learning documents that could be well appreciated by your child(ren).
As mentioned above, am in the same situ and a Sagg who likes to travel light in and in a constant state of minimalising, so the compromise is boxing tight until ready to go there.
I never liked keeping diaries, I think it’s arrogant, like you expect future archivists to dedicate themselves to preserving your meanderings after you retire from the US Presidency and it’s all stored at your Presidential Library. I certainly don’t want to ruminate over my past history, I dwell on it far too much already.
But I am keeping a tarot diary. I’ve been developing some very complex readings based on the old GD Opening of the Key and it is too difficult to do it in your head, I need to write it down just to keep track of it during the reading. It takes hours to do a full reading. So I write it down in a cryptic notation that makes Enochian Tablets look simple in comparison. I have been looking back at some readings from recent Love Zombie times and I re-read the cards and think what a mess I was. Then I read more recent pages and think what I mess I was. Then I do a new reading and think about what a mess I am. And then I think about what I’ll think when I look at my tarot diary a few months from now. I’ll probably think about what a mess I was.
But no matter. I started doing my annual card reading for my birthday. I figure I should do it on the Eclipse day, today, a few days in advance of my reading. I usually set an intention for my Solar Return, but I think the Solar Eclipse plays a trump card. Hey I scanned the key spreads from my cartomancy book, check them out:
So my ruling card, 5 of Hearts, is in the Mercury/Jupiter position this year. A quick preliminary reading is that this year I’ll spend a lot of time thinking about my pitiful condition. But I have barely started my reading. No doubt I will look back on this reading next year and think about what a mess I was.
I totally agree with you about the presidential library thing. Why woul I want to burden my progeny with my dirty thoughts to lug around. Thinking too much is the barrier to enlightenment, not insight into it.
I’m a shredder. I came across some partially kept journals and I cried when I recognised pages that showed an undiagnosed depression. What a waste! Shredded them. I have a fat journal with lots of tarot stuff and thoughts. It’ll be shredded too eventually. Not a lot of literary merit in mine though, or a much of a biographical record really. I am rewriting my memories and that has been valuable – new reflections, gratitude and growth. Good luck with your choice. Much wise advice here.
No!!!! Don’t burn them!! PLEASE have a friend – a very trusted and trustworthy friend – who is literarily inclined… a writer even?? – or even approach a publishing agent – to see if this is the seed of a book. I feel SO strongly about knowing our history (maybe this is pluto natally on my IC). You son may one day want to know you better and understand the beginnings of his life. Maybe even long after you are gone. I know they’re painful memories. But just because you can’t bear to look back, doesn’t mean it’s not a rich ground for creativity or *something*… anything.
hope i am not sounding too desperate. But I feel so strongly about this sort of thing. When we’re gone, these personal things are often the most precious items we have left for a loved one. and your personal work in mining the underworld has to pay off somewhere.. x
Yes I agree…. They sound too precious to throw away…. Keep them
A little while ago I threw out a load of old writings – the wisdom and information is not lost if you need it. The stuff that gets forgotten are the lessons that you have come through and have no need of anymore. On monday I found some words from 2007, that version of me is a shaddow of who I have become today. It sealed my commitment to the reinvented me to thow this out, unceremoniously.
Be free to release the old version of you.
If it’s a difficult decision to burn or not to burn, why not wait a bit? When you are ready the decision will be as easy as tossing or recycling an empty egg carton – and will put a big fat smile on your face!!
Diaries seem too personal to throw away. Even though I have kept a diary since I was 7, most have been destroyed by myself out of fear that either someone would find them and because some books were a marzipan version of what I really felt, and those books were a lie.
I regret every destroyed book, and there are few regrets I have.
Some years ago I helped maintain a large community on live journal for people who kept journals in real life, and once someone posted about how they’d love to find a stranger’s journal. Instead of wrecking my written self, I wish I had those books for an unknown person to find. Symbolically it would have meant moving on but without ruining the foundations of who I am.
Mercury in Cancer, I think Mercury would be the one to rule things like diaries.
Stray Sagittarian : ) beautiful thankyou!
Burn the fuckers!!!!!!!!!!
Love is the ashes
Take your time re the burning. I faced this dilemma before I moved to Australia 30 years ago. I felt if I took the diaries with me, I would just be carrying the burden of a lot of unhappiness forward. I did burn the lot. 12 years worth, at night in a dustbin and it felt both good and very sad. I kept one and I only regret burning 3 things: 2 exercise books of my travels and the last diary kept while at school. I have to face the same thing again very soon, but I will take the precious things I wrote down about my children, who are now in their 20s. These are what matter above all else and in a way, they are your son’s story that you cared enough to write down and belong to him and any children he may have. These are also the things that I don’t remember verbatim – because I wrote them down to keep. I hope you will be gentle and kind to your present self and past self. If there is one diary you know 100% that you can burn – do that. It’s a start on a path that might take a little longer than you would perhaps wish, but it’s a move forward. It isn’t an easy decision to make, but at first it doesn’t have to be ‘all or none’. It is enough to begin gently and that is what I wish you.
There that’s it! ‘Be kind to your past self’. Lovely advise.
Burn them.
Read them after you die.
If you are anything like me you will never read those diaries again!
(I haven’t thrown out my Saturn Return Diaries either, I am thinking to do the shred ‘n’ burn this Winter Solstice).
Perhaps there is something in them, a paragraph or a line that is calling out to you?
Why not try skimming over them & seeing if there is something you need to know or be reminded of??
You must be very, very strong to be moving forward with this guy.
A snake sheds it skin and moves on, but I am not sure a leopard changes his spots. Is he a snake or a leopard? 🙂
Guess I feel like the uncertainty about dumping the diaries is related to the fact that you might not actually trust him to stand his ground when the going gets tough.
If it were me, I would dump him and the diaries.
Phoar. Hard core. Love it
I would ”burn baby burn” them.
The wincing sealing the deal.
Easy for me to say, I’ve lost my written history/remnants of places visited and what not, once in a flood and once in a fire.
It can leave a wind tunnel momentarily.
But i guess its like if you let an old friend , pretty soon a new friend pops up who gets who you are from this point in your life.
If you let them go its the end of an old cycle and there will be room to make a new cycle.
You could always put them in the compost bin if you have one…use them for fertilizing….
You know what to do !
May the force be with you. x
Love this Cosmic.
I’m an obsessive diarist too…I have kept a diary since I was eight years old and still have every single one. That’s not to mention all the blogs I keep as well…
I say she should take a photo of the pile of diaries, as a memory of the time and then burn or shred and recycle the pages. (Not everyone has the space for burning thing safely). Shredding will ensure no-one but her reads them and recycling means something new and clean and good will be made from the old and the painful—that’s got to be good right, phoenix style?
I’m watching very thoughtful and articulate advice come in, but – you can’t have a Pluto diary. You can lug stories around. Pluto is the destroyer of stories. You can’t tell the story of unraveling every fiber of you being because its gone. Your hand is reluctant to toss them, perhaps, because that is as close as you got to evidence of your trip to Hades. Keep them if you like. Like field notes on hell. I kept a blog when I went to hell. I think it is backed-up somewhere. I think I could tell a better tale from it now. Like the saying goes “the difference between truth and fiction is fiction has to make sense.” Pluto doesn’t. It’s affects are in your Life. Life, not back-ups. Sorry for the rant. I get the dilemma. Follow your heart like Pluto taught you.
More plainly – you will never have evidence of who you are. You are it. The rest is fantasy now. I have a load of libra planets – I say if its going to be fantasy, make space for it to be an impossibly beautiful one. Live ready to break your heart again.
’twas me asking the question, and I love this take on it all!
So glad! Its a dark perspective in that its free of the ego gratification of it all.
I’d rather leave my daughter a cherry blossom tree or a pomegranate seed or a dining table, messy but handmade, and the memories of the times we spent with those things – something she can use to replenish her own spirit. Because that’s the real skill in life – the living of it. Happy phoenixing!
You know your journey and releasing the written journey or documentation doesn’t change it or your existence.
You could bury them and plant something above your words. To symbolise growing beyond, above and through all that was before. Of course this is your decision. I hope whatever you decide you feel the peace and connection necessary to move yourself forward.
Dear Stray, As an ex-resident and now volunteer docent of Pluto, I absolutely feel for you. Those diaries are a piece of the hell you lived through, and now you’ve phoenixed over, riddance becomes a question of whether or not you’re denying the very pain you’ve embraced and made you who you are today. No wonder your hand trembles so as you try to take your leave from it.
So I will introduce another dimension to the question, as to my mind you’re not ready to let them go. To me, the plutonic was a once bloody pain that dissipated into something like sound. Visible signs of it were gone, but underneath everything, my skin, the air, a random word, a scent, it would reverberate in a frequency only I could hear. It would and it does drive me blindly mad at times. The ways we cope become dear to us, and for myself, there is partly an almost superstition to giving up the rituals that saved me from being swallowed by everything.
Your diaries are like that door you can’t shut to the back garden with its well worn paths, beaten down as you trod over it ceaselessly. Till one day, you found yourself through another door, and now it can’t be helped to give a wistful background glance. I would suggest that these things are not cut off per se, but taken in and ingested. We become, through such trials so acutely meant for us, much much bigger than all of it.
So like the plant that takes the mud and the rain, the heat and the wind, you’ve been fed and you’ve transmuted all that into the grateful and compassionate presence you are today. The diaries may well be inked bloody with your sorrows, but it was the act of your writing each and every single one down that mattered. The words are just words, and you have made your own work of healing.
I don’t personally believe it matters that you throw them out NOW, it wouldn’t seal the deal either way. I would say put them in a box, seal it tightly, make it as plain or as decorative as you want and stash it away. Then wait. Wait for the impulse that says, I don’t need you here anymore. Or whatever impulse may come.
You never know, you may find yourself remembering a passage you once wrote when a friend in dire straits retells a difficulty so familiar. Or you may wake up and be happy to use the whole lot as kindling.
But IMO, what you must not do is to provoke anymore anxiety over what was in my view, a sacred act of conversation you undertook with this other spirit of self you needed at the time for healing. Writing is a brave thing, especially during times when all we have to document is sadness.
Trust yourself that you’ll do what’s right for you when the time is ripe. But until then, box it, forget it. Sometimes it’s in the act of accepting our own indecision and hesitation that we really find what’s real for us.
Insight Angel,
Faced the diary dilemma, over 25 books, (some pages have only a few words), about 6 weeks ago in a the culling urge.
To box them and put them out of sight is the most practical solution i reached. Going through them all to mine for some worthy words and expressions to keep is worthwhile when in that mood whenever, if ever it comes along.
“I remember when they were the only things I could talk to.”
Maybe wait when they have less resonance and vibe to them.
When you’re sure you have something to take their place.
I would definitely BURN them and not just toss them out because they mean so much to you and all that energy can be transmuted to something else. When you’re sure you’re ready.
Burn ’em!! Just before the full moon and chant 9 times: “I thank you for the learning, and I now release this energy back into the Universe.” …. and let go.
Scan them and burn the originals.
I agree with Charles. My personal twist on your dilemma would be to scan it then save them all onto a thumb drive. You then have a neat little uncluttered package, your trophy/momento/badge to store away, all archived and in a physically detached place. Lock it in a safety deposit box somewhere where it’d be difficult to access on impulse… I envy you guys that can keep a regular journal. I’m more eloquent conveying mt thoughts or brilliant ideas in speech. So I uber cherish and retain all my entries when in rare form am able to channel the emotions effortlessly into written form. Blame that on my 12th house Aries mercury. And I’m a fiercely mercury ruled sign so its agonizingly frustrating when speed of thought and language don’t sync. However I have ritual torched ex partner angst and grievances with great success. The moment before is awful but once ignited, you’re free
Well I’m thinking more about destroying the physical diaries while preserving the content as an intangible set of data.
But then, I’m in the midst of a scanning binge. Dump everything in the scanner document feeder, put it in a PDF and store it on my 3Tb hard drive. I just don’t seem to get around to destroying the originals. My shredder burned out from too much shredding.
I never burn diaries. I might rip out individual pages, edit pieces of writing, but the diary is always kept in some kind of way, It doesn’t just contain all my personal thoughts, it has pieces of art, quotes, clippings, references to books and articles that can always be of future use. I’d just burn what you want to burn, and start a brand new diary. That’s what I did recently after not keeping a diary for a few years. The diary exists in so many different ways that there is just not one place where it all exists. You’ll never find it all out in one place anyway, it’s like the research process. These processes close off and start anew all the time. Do something symbolic to start afresh.
Dear Stray Sagg, I understand the diary thing believe me, I’ve been a compulsive diarist since I was 8 years old.
I think your strategy of leaving them by the door is a good one. They are slowly edging their way out of your life and your consciousness. The lessons and wisdom of those years will never be lost or forgotten.
From my own experience… I recently threw out ten years’ worth of diaries, all my angsting about my marriage plus my seemingly endless grief over another man I fell deeply in love with. The decision to bin them was a slow-burning one. It was a process that took months. I re-read them all and noted how I felt when I read them and asked myself, never mind the words, do I want to keep these feelings? The answer was no. I acknowledged the deep pain of knowing that the issues ten years ago in my marriage were the same ones that ended it. This was hard to read but ultimately freeing – I had it in black and white so to speak.
The diaries of my other relationship and the subsequent grief just brought me terrible pain. I was afraid that if I binned the diaries and the evidence of my experience, that it would somehow erase or diminish the experience. But it didn’t. I know that in low moments if I still had those diaries I would sit for hours and read them, but I also know they would only bring me pain. That knowledge, in the end, is how I made my decision. It didn’t mean I loved him less or that I had ‘got over it’ (I wish). Ultimately I just didn’t want to invite more pain into my heart when I was feeling low enough already.
When I eventually threw them all out there was little fanfare. I burnt some of them, but most got tossed in the recycle bin. I didn’t feel any immediate movie-moment epiphany, far from it. Nor was it easy. It hurt and I cried, but I knew in my heart it was the right thing for me.
The act was about cutting myself free from the past and accepting that there had to be something better in my future.
Interestingly, once I chucked the diaries I felt brave enough to tackle other things.
Soz for being long-winded, I am thinking as I write. You ask what to do? Well I think you already know in your heart what’s best for you. If you wait until it feels ‘easy’ you could be waiting a long time. Let them make their way further out the door until they are gone. Chart yourself a new future xx
So reminds me of a previous post by Mystic. ‘She let go’
“No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.” Ernest Holmes
I made a huge cleansing bonfire of some similar diary’s,
(with 12thhouse moon/pluto/uranus conjunct)
Burning up all those secrets & anguish was really cleansing.
Wish sometimes I could erase the harddrive in my own head.
So happy to hear you have come through it.
With my chart, life seems like one long pluto transit……
At least i get to rise from the ashes every few years…..
Hmm, I totally can relate to this. As a fellow Sagittarian that went through an incredibly difficult Plutonic transit as well, I feel your pain. I too, have written out journals and entry after entry; pages filled to the brim of tearful longings and painful experiences for almost a decade. Ive contemplated the exact thought of getting rid of those books too.
Maybe its my Cancer Rising, but I couldnt burn those books. Those books might remind me of a bad time, but Ive consciously replaced the thought that they are negative to the thought that they arent; because if youve learned and grown from an experience, is it really a negative thing? For example, failure is not a negative thing. There is a negative perception of it, but failure is what brings you to success; without it you dont find what finally works. Growth is not easy and does not travel a straight and predictable road.
When I think of my oid journals, I think of where I was back then… and then I contrast that with where I am now…. and maybe its just me but I am darn PROUD of how much Ive been through and how much Ive grown. All that pain… they are like notches on my belt of character building experience that (perhaps) I wear too proudly. LOL. To me those journals will always be like an old friend…. no matter how much we might have grown apart over time, I will always always always honor and respect the reality that for a long time they were my only friend… But thats just me.
I can understand both sides… I think burning them would be a great release, especially at the time of the eclipse. But I think the most important thing for you is being *honest with yourself* about how you feel about them and what YOU want to do. Its a terribly personal thing you are asking, imho.
I know for me – about 98% of the time, I know when I need to let go of something. The feeling just comes through in a very thorough and complete way, and you know you have to say your goodbyes. Sometimes the Universe will do it for you. I personally find that a very reliable barometer of “when in doubt”. So far though, the Universe is ok with me keeping mine. I have a lot of spiritual gold in those books and I know I have material to drive personal creative projects in the future from those difficult times.
No matter what the decision you make, make sure it feels right to you from the inside out. One thing Pluto taught me, is make your decision and move forward with no regrets. He respects someone who knows what they want and is wiling to go through whatever may come based on firm and unwavering personal conviction and integrity. Good luck and blessings to you. Xx
You are so right re ‘do what feels right for you’
i burnt my books mainly because I couldn’t bear anyone else to read them if I died. I’m always worried about the prospect of my secrets getting into the wrong hands, and being unable to make it through the nigredo process which typify’s pluto’s depths)
I will never throw out my journals. Maybe I should. But I won’t/can’t. I’ve gone through them and mined for sentences and ideas that have been useful in my writing and to me throwing them out would be wishing that I didn’t have to go through the pain that has made me who I am.
One time I did lose one though…and it was strangely liberating. I thought I would freak out and be super sad but I was very Zen about it, took it as a message.
I should be cleaning out my stuff now in prep for the new moon. It’s hard for me to when money is tight (that’s when I am more prone to Toro packratness) but maybe it’s time to force myself to cultivate a little bit more trust and hunger for newness/nowness.
Can you keep parts about the kid that might bemuse him someday? That’s my 12th House Moon talking….
Yes, I think that too. Transcribe the things for your son and then let go of the rest.
Ditto
I’d definately copy out the parts about your son!!!! Definately, don’t lose those!!!
I say burn them. A snake doesn’t need to old kind around to know what kind of animal it is. You are bigger now and have new stories to tell. Burn – I get a lot of satisfaction from burning old papers. If they aren’t mine, they’re no one’s.
What horrible auto-correct/typos. Meant to quip about snakes and old skins. You are a good writer so you can always write again.