Aspen writer turns trauma into medicine in Moon Mondays column

Aspen —The obvious take on trauma is that it’s a wound that never quite heals, a jagged cut that leaves a permanent, ugly keloid on the psyche. But to hear the story told in Aspen’s Moon Mondays column, the scar is actually the point. It’s not just a mark of damage; it’s the beginning of medicine.

The writer doesn’t mince words. She was molested by her father. She’s been through enough abuse to know those wounds don’t just disappear. They ooze, they crust over, and eventually, they scar. But the real work — the kind that changes how you live your life — starts when you stop treating the scar as a defect and start treating it as a tool.

“Trauma makes a jagged cut and leaves an ugly keloid scar behind. Mine certainly did,” she wrote in the Aspen Times. “I know firsthand that recovering from trauma becomes the balm we share with others to soften their crusty scabs.”

It’s a counterintuitive pivot. We usually think of healing as the removal of pain. Here, healing is the alchemy of turning pain into power. The column ties this personal history to the astrological event of Chiron, the “wounded healer” planet, turning retrograde. The idea is simple: when a planet spins backward, you go inward. You look at where your open sores, once tended to, become medicine for yourself and others.

“Trauma drives evolution, the wound transformed into wisdom,” she said.

She’s not condoning the abuse. She’s clear on that. “Abuse is horrific to experience. I wouldn’t wish that torment onto anybody.” But she’s arguing that staying in victimhood is a trap. The alternative isn’t just “getting over it”; it’s actively excavating the unconscious mind to gain agency over your choices.

For years, she was in “victim mode, barely scraping by day to day.” She tried everything. Therapy. Meditation. Diet. Exercise. Self-help books and courses that numbered in the dozens. Some took the edge off. None touched the subconscious beliefs that were actually driving her life.

“The question is whether you can move from isolation, addiction and depression into the mostly functioning writer before you,” she noted. “That didn’t occur until I started actively excavating my unconscious mind. It felt miraculous to finally gain agency over my choices instead of pinballing around, unaware of what was driving me.”

This week, the lunar cycle supports that excavation. Wednesday brings the last quarter moon, a reflective time that asks us to look at what came to fruition and what didn’t. Where did we support ourselves? Where did we sabotage ourselves? It’s a magnetic pull toward stillness, a chance to see our patterns before the next new moon.

The math holds up: if you don’t address the root cause, the symptom returns. If you don’t understand the scar, you keep picking at it. The column suggests that now is the time to dip your toe into the deep end of your emotional pool. Where are you still hurting?

It’s a personal journey, but the framework is universal. The scar is the evidence that you survived. The wisdom is what you do with it. And in a world that often tells us to hide our wounds, the suggestion to share them as medicine is a radical act of resilience.

“We grow and become empowered by healing from our pain,” she concluded. “Recovery is infinitely better than getting mired in victimhood.”