Elizabeth Smart’s story

Elizabeth Smart was abducted on June 5, 2002 when she was 14. She was held prisoner and sexually abused every day for nine months.

She is very forthcoming about her “nine months in hell” in her newly published memoir, My Story (October 2013). (1)

Smart said in a recent CNN interview: “I wanted it to be really what happened and what it was like every single day I was there, because I don’t think I’m doing anyone any favors by sugarcoating it.” (2)

She has become a highly visible activist for children who have been abducted and sexually abused. “Her goal as a public figure is to make ‘talking about rape and abuse not such a taboo.'” (3)

Elizabeth Smart was born on November 3, 1987. The Scorpio Sun that day was newly infused by its conjunction to Pluto the day before. (4) The Moon was in Aries the entire day she was born, and Venus moved from 29° Scorpio into Sagittarius in the afternoon of her birth.

Elizabeth Smart was raised in a close Mormon family. Transiting Neptune at 10° Aquarius squared her natal Sun five times between April 2002 and November 2003. Aside from disappearing from her life in the middle of the night, another image of that combination is her abductor’s claim to be obeying God’s orders in taking her and raping her. She knew differently. “My parents have always raised me believing in a kind and loving God who cares about each of his children here on earth,” she said in an interview. “When I was kidnapped and being told that all of these things were done because God commanded it — it made my personal faith stronger, because I knew God would never demand these things.” She said her belief in God was never swayed or negatively impacted by the experience, a different testament to Neptune. (5)

She was abducted on June 5, 2002. There was a solar eclipse on June 10 at 19°54’ Gemini. Saturn was at 18°34’ Gemini, conjunct the eclipse and about to make the (only) opposition to natal Saturn at 18°48’ Sag, exact on June 11. The transiting south node was on natal Saturn in the 2nd house (solar chart); the eclipse triggered a staggering loss (SN) of her security and physical safety.

Elizabeth Smart was born very close to Mercury stationing direct. Retrograde at birth (28° Libra), Mercury turned direct on November 6; by secondary progression she would have been about 3 years old.

Mercury ingressed into Scorpio on November 12, 1987 — by secondary progression, she was about age 9 years old, sometime close to the fateful moment of the half-nodal return. The bearer of messages and traveler between worlds left the land of beauty and balance (Libra) and joined the Sun and Pluto in the land of a sometimes gruesome underworld. Her inner resources were deepening.

While she was held by her captors, transiting Pluto began to conjoin natal Saturn. Although that certainly took her to the hell realms, it also showed her tremendous fortitude — the first passage was in January 2003. In interviews, she speaks about the fear that kept her from trying to escape. She is adamant about not judging: “You can never judge a child or a victim of any crime on what they should have done, because you weren’t there and you don’t know and you have no right just to sit in your armchair at home and say ‘Well, why didn’t you escape? Why didn’t you do this?’ I mean, they just don’t know.” (6)

She was recognized and freed on March 12, 2003, the day after Uranus’s ingress into Pisces — what an answer to prayer that must have felt like to the deeply religious girl and her family. Transiting Mars (dispositor of natal Sun and Moon) was at 5° Capricorn, conjoining natal Neptune 5°49’ Capricorn: Mars severed the entrapment (Neptune).

Scorpio has continued in her story. Since her rescue (when she was 15), progressed Mercury conjoined natal and progressed Pluto in 2004 and 2005 (she was 17 or 18). She also had a progressed New Moon at 28°24’ Scorpio sometime between October 2004 and October 2005. (Working with a sunrise chart, I can’t be more specific about the time.) Significantly, the themes of healing, rebirth, darkness, and the taboo of sexuality are generating this relatively new 30-year cycle of her life. Mars, dispositor of the Scorpio Sun and Aries Moon, was in Libra at her birth. Mars also ingressed into Scorpio in May 2008.

She was married on February 18, 2012. (The transiting Sun was on her natal Juno at 24° Aquarius.) In the New Yorker interview she said: “There’s a huge difference between rape and sex. Having experienced both, I know it’s not the same thing.”

Transiting Saturn has been on natal Pluto and the Sun throughout 2013; the last exact passage was in October. Saturn has escorted her harrowing and redemptive story into form.

Her book was published in the month before last week’s solar eclipse, which happened on her birthday, November 3, 2013. The eclipse was at 11°15’ Scorpio. (The Sun on the day she was born traveled between 10°19’ and 11°19’ Scorpio.)

Margaret Talbot, author of the New Yorker article, writes: “Smart presents herself as a pure girl who emerged from degradation purer still – stronger but somehow still innocent.” (7)

Many happy returns to Elizabeth Smart.

Footnotes:

(1) Huffington Post

(2) CNN

(3) Gone Girl: The extraordinary resilience of Elizabeth Smart
New Yorker

(4) November 3, 1987; Salt Lake City, Utah; time unknown Source: Wikipedia

(5) The Blaze

(6) The Blaze

(7) Scorpio’s obvious presence aside, her prenatal Sun-Mars conjunction was part of a stellium in Virgo: Sun and Mars at 1°34 Virgo, Venus at 2°, Mercury at 6°, and the Moon at 10°.