The Pause Between Breaths

Grief doesn’t always end at the burial or cremation. When the ashes come home, it can feel like mourning is all that’s left, until hidden truths rise up.

The Pause Between Breaths

Grief doesn’t always stay soft and sorrowful. After the burial or cremation, when the ashes come home, it can feel like all that’s left is the weight of mourning. But grief has layers. Sometimes, what follows isn’t peace, it’s revelation. Hidden betrayals surface, old lies come undone, and truths you weren’t prepared for spill into the open. In those moments, grief can darken into something sharper, almost unrecognizable. This isn’t weakness; it’s the shadow side of loss, when mourning collides with betrayal. If you find yourself here, know that you’re not broken; you’re simply walking through the raw, unlit corridors of truth.

This weekend, everything stopped.

The grief hit me like a tidal wave again, though it’s been months since my father passed. Picking up his ashes and belongings tore open the wound like it had never healed at all. It wasn’t just grief; it was the silence that followed a pause where time itself seemed to hold its breath. In that pause, shadows creep in thoughts of suicide, of stopping altogether. A voice inside whispered I was unworthy, inadequate, a failure, and that I wasn’t worthy of his love or legacy. His last actions seemed to put those beliefs into motion. I recognized that voice. It carried my father’s beliefs, not mine. His sharp words, his betrayals, his inability to see my worth, those echoes still haunt my mind.

But they are not me.

True betrayal occurs when we accept the falsehoods others say about us. I felt that sting: “I am not enough.” “I’ll never get it right.” “Why even try?”

These are not my truths; they are my father’s limitations, projected onto me. Generational weight masquerades as identity. My real me, my Soul, is luminous, infinite, and worthy of love, but in the heaviness of the moment, that truth felt buried under rubble.

My dear friend Shawn Klinkner, creator of WisdomTree Astrology, started a group in Discord called Week Ahead Tarot Spread. I’ve been doing this since the beginning. (If you’re interested in more information, I’ve included his links at the bottom of this blog.) For two weeks, the 7 of Swords kept showing up. Last week, the 7 of Swords with the 3 of Swords flew out of my deck. That really caught my attention. The World card was also appearing, speaking of closure.

My father’s betrayal came one week after that spread. I found out the day after I brought my dad’s ashes home, and that’s when everything stopped. My grief took a darker turn, and it became purging, unlike anything I had ever felt. Even thoughts of suicide entered my mind. I knew this wasn’t mine, but it was so deep I found it difficult to pull myself out.

I turned to my spread for guidance.

The Spread

• Concept to Meditate On: The Hierophant
  What wisdom is worth keeping? What false teachings must burn away? I saw the heavy inheritance of “unworthy, not enough, undeserving.” These are not sacred truths; they are shackles. The Hierophant asked me to discern: what is divine wisdom, and what is just dogma passed down through fear?

• Area to Invest Energy: Three of Pentacles
  Invest only in building with those who see my light. Not everyone deserves a seat at my table. Not every voice gets to define me. The ones who recognize my worth are the ones I build with.

• Something Not to Forget: Eight of Cups + The World
  Walk away. Close the cycle. The story of “Father” is not the story of me. His betrayals, his shadows, his limitations, they do not define the arc of my soul. The World reminds me: endings are the beginning of sovereignty.
  This echoed the sky itself: the Pisces Solar Eclipse (Sept 7, 2025) fell across my 3rd and 9th houses, stirring endings and revealing what no longer holds. Just as the cards called for closure, the eclipse confirmed it, a release written in the heavens.

• Message from Spirit: Judgment
  The trumpet is sounding. It’s time to rise, not in perfection, not without scars, but in truth. Judgment is the call to wake up, to shed the borrowed shame, to step into the life I was meant to claim.

• Anchor Card: Witches (The Endless Oracle Deck)
  I am not alone. I have community, seen and unseen, holding me as I rewrite my lineage. Ancestors root for me. Spirit kin remind me that my light cannot be extinguished.

The cards did not sugarcoat my reality. They showed me the death of illusions, the sting of betrayal, and the necessity of rest. But they also whispered: the spark is not gone.

The Sky

The heavens mirrored the storm inside me:

• Mars Return in the 10th house of Libra
  → A familiar fire, now burning in strange winds. Mars demands to be seen as action and conflict rise into public view. But in Libra, its detriment, the strikes land sideways: indecision, strained negotiations, effort without ease. The result is motion that feels like struggle, visible, unavoidable, but conflicted.

· Transit Sun in the (9H) of Virgo square Natal Sun & Moon in Sagittarius (12H)
This transit brings a clash between the conscious search for truth and the hidden beliefs buried deep within. The Sun in Virgo shines a sharp light on my spiritual foundations, challenging inherited dogmas, exposing internalized voices, especially those from father figures, and demanding purification. The square to my natal Sun and Moon in the 12th house of Sagittarius pressurizes my identity and emotional body, forcing a reckoning: What beliefs are truly mine, and what were planted by others?
It's a spiritual confrontation, a solar spotlight on unconscious patterns calling me to release old myths and rise with a truth that belongs to me alone.

• Transit Mercury in Virgo (9H) square natal Moon and Sun in Sagittarius (12H)
  → The mind clashing with the soul. Words snagged on grief, thoughts colliding with the deepest parts of me. The tension between reason and raw feeling.

• Saturn retrograde in Pisces (3H) opposite natal Pluto in Virgo (9H)
  → Heavy karma in the house of voice and thought. My mind felt caged, my words breaking under ancestral weight. Old structures are collapsing, demanding a new way of speaking truth.

• Timelord Mercury, 2° past the Sun after cazimi
  → The brilliance had passed, but the ember still glowed. Clarity flickered on the edge of shadow, the sense that something was revealed, even if I couldn’t hold onto it.

• Transit Neptune in Aries (4H) opposite natal Uranus in Libra (10H)
  → Chaos between home and calling. The ground dissolving beneath me, the structures of my life cracking with sudden uncertainty.

• Transit Jupiter in Cancer (7H) square natal Mars in Libra (10H) and natal Saturn in Aries (4H)
  → Expansion meets resistance. Every partnership, every bond, felt like pressure against my most fragile places, clashing between growth and old walls.

• Mars Return in Libra (10H) opposite natal Saturn in Aries (4H)
  → Action against limitation. Drive against the stone wall of fear, battling between my will to rise and the weight of old chains.

• Saturn retrograde in Pisces (3H) conjunct natal Chiron (3H)
  → The wound of voice pressed open. Every word tasted like pain; every silence felt like betrayal. Saturn says this wound must be faced, not avoided.

• Saturn retrograde in Pisces (3H) square natal Moon and Sun in Sagittarius (12H)
  → The cosmic teacher pressing on my very soul. The weight of lineage, karma, and responsibility collides with my spirit and emotions, a crushing heaviness, yet one that demands growth.

The sky was not soft. It was ruthless, pressing every fracture, highlighting every wound. The battlefield above became the battlefield within. And yet, within the weight was an invitation: to see the lies for what they were, and to refuse to carry them further.

The Eclipse

The eclipse joined the storm.

The Pisces Solar Eclipse (Sept 7, 2025) stirred endings and revealed what no longer holds. Falling across my 3rd and 9th houses, it pressed directly on the axis of voice, truth, communication, and belief systems. In the 3rd house, it revealed the pain in my voice, unspoken words, betrayals, and denied expression. In the 9th, it confronted the false teachings I inherited, the beliefs that chained me to unworthiness.

This eclipse was a release: a closing of stories that were never mine to carry. A cosmic confirmation that this grief, this purging, is part of a larger ending. The deepest betrayal wasn’t in my father’s actions. It was in how I once believed his words about me: that I was inadequate, unworthy of love, never enough. I almost let those shadows win. But now, I see them for what they are. His beliefs. Not mine.

I am not his silence. I am not his judgment. I am not his shadow.
I am light, unbroken, breathing, still here. And that is enough.

All these transits are activating my 3rd–9th–4th-10th axis:

• 3rd/9th: communication, siblings, inheritance disputes, truth, belief systems.

• 4th/10th: father, roots, home vs. career, public visibility, legacy.

This is why everything hurts so sharply. The entire family/legacy axis is under pressure: my father, my siblings, my identity, my voice, my public role, all tied in one karmic knot. The 12th house is also activated, which is associated with themes such as hidden matters, self-undoing, unconscious processes, transitions, and closure. This is why it feels so heavy, so inescapable. Grief isn’t just personal; it’s ancestral, collective, and spiritual.

My chart is currently lit up across these houses. Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Mercury, and the Sun are all pressing at once. It’s an onslaught. No wonder it feels unbearable.

But here’s what I need to remind myself:

• This is a transit storm, and like all storms, it too shall pass. The pain is sharp because multiple planets are activating wounds simultaneously. That’s timing, not fate.

• I am not the sum of these transits. They are the weather; I am the Soul navigating them.

• Judgment + Mercury’s cazimi still stands. Spirit is calling me through the fire, even if I can only sit in the smoke right now.

• Mercury cazimi in the 9th house of Virgo gave me a moment of pure revelation. In the heart of the Sun, Mercury was purified: a flash of truth about belief systems, wisdom, and what teachings to keep or release.

• This was the cosmic mirror of the Judgment card: the trumpet below and the trumpet above sounding together. Spirit delivered the same message twice: rise, burn away the false teachings, claim your true voice.

The story is written three times over.

The Tarot says: walk away, close the cycle, and rise.
The Transits say: family, legacy, and hidden grief are the battlefield.
The Eclipse says: release what no longer holds.

Spirit whispers: You are not abandoned. Your voice is your wealth. Your allies are your anchor. Together they sing the same truth: this is an ending, but not of me.
It is the ending of lies, of borrowed shame, of shadows that were never mine to carry. What rises after the release is not silence, but my voice is steady, sovereign, and free.

Before we continue, I invite you to take a breath with me.
A breath to remind us that even in the darkest hours,
life still flows, steady and sacred.

This poem is born from grief,
from the weight of betrayal,
from the silence that almost swallowed me whole.

But it is also born from fire,
from release,
from the truth that light does not abandon us.

If at any moment the weight feels too heavy or the thoughts become too sharp, please reach out for immediate support. Wherever you are, know this: you are not alone. The shadows lie; your breath, your presence, and your life are sacred.

This piece speaks honestly about grief and includes references to suicidal thoughts.
If you are struggling, please remember you do not have to carry this alone.
In the U.S., you can dial 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline; someone will answer, day or night.
Wherever you are, know this: your breath, your presence, your life are sacred.

Trumpet of Release

I carried your ashes with trembling hands,
The silence roared like shifting sands.
Your love was cold, your voice was steel,
Each word was a wound I couldn’t heal.

You said I’d never be enough,
Called softness weak, and kindness a bluff.
I drank your shame, it scorched my core,
A daughter burned in myths of yore.

Anger rose, a crimson tide,
A storm I couldn’t run or hide from.
And in the smoke, despair took shape,
A whisper dark, a dream of escape.

But fire doesn’t only kill
It burns to cleanse, to bend the will.
Your shadow cracked beneath my flame,
Your power lost, your ghost no name.

The cards laid bare what lies concealed:
The Hierophant taught the truth that heals.
The World turned slow, then closed the gate,
And Judgment sang: “It’s not too late.”

The eclipse unveiled the final thread,
What once enslaved now hangs by shreds.
The sky itself began to bleed
Not as an end, but soul’s deep need.

I rose from ash, not as your pain,
But sovereign self-reborn again.
No longer chained to your belief,
I crowned myself in hard-earned grief.

I am the breath that breaks the past.
I am the first, the free, the last.
I am the flame that will not fall.
I am the light that holds it all.

So, if you ask what made me stay
It was the choice to forge my way.
And now I speak, I rise, I be
Not perfect, but divinely free.

But what I shed in the storm
will never return.

When the Sky Speaks

The sky is not my fate, you see
It’s shifting winds, not prophecy.
The stars don’t bind me to the past,
They speak in symbols, meant to pass.

Mars lights a fire, not to destroy,
But to unearth forgotten joy.
It strikes the match inside my chest,
To wake the power I’ve suppressed.

Saturn lays stones, one by one,
Heavy truths I cannot outrun.
But in that weight, I built my throne
A kingdom forged from flesh and bone.

Neptune weaves the veils of mist,
A dream, a lie, a serpent's twist.
But in the blur, I come to see
Not all I fear belongs to me.

Jupiter widens every gate,
A burst of faith, a shift in fate.
He calls me to expand, to rise,
To meet my soul beneath the skies.

Mercury speaks in thunder’s spark,
Thoughts igniting in the dark.
A flash of truth, a piercing cry,
That splits illusion like the sky.

The Sun peers down from heights so high,
A searing truth across the sky.
In Virgo’s gaze, it casts its light
On hidden scars I tucked from sight.

It squares my soul, it squares my skin
Demands I purge what lies within.
My father’s voice, that old refrain,
Burns in its beam and leaves a stain.

But fire reveals what’s truly mine
A forged belief, a brighter spine.
The 12th house shakes, the veils unspool,
And I emerge as my truest jewel.

And Moon, sweet Moon, she pulls the tide,
Where grief and longing try to hide.
She shows me that loss is not the end
It’s how the soul begins to mend.

These planets guide, not binding chains,
They mark the maps through storms and pains.
Their voices whisper through the storm:
“Transform. Release. Become. Reform.”

So, I walk on, though skies may weep,
Through eclipse, through truths that cut so deep.
The storm will pass, the sky will clear
But what I shed won’t reappear.

I rise, unburdened by the past,
Each purge a freedom built to last.
The stars don’t seal my destiny
They shine to help me set it free.

Links: Shawn Klinkner | WisdomTree Astrology

www.wisdomtreeastrology.com

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/wisdomtreeastrology