I got a bunch of astro-books and want to do some reviews sometime when I'm not likely to be dragged off the computer soonish. Good stuff to come.
Anyhoo, mostly posting a quick one to comment on the Planet Waves weekly that just came in e-mail:
Taurus (April 19-May 20)
You must be impeccable about how you present yourself in professional situations. You could, at the moment, convince anyone that you have anything. Yet then you would have to demonstrate your skills and be seen for who you are. The point is this: at the moment, you believe in yourself, and you can see that you really do have a long-range plan that is finally starting to seem plausible, and like its time has arrived. Be bold about your intentions and your aspirations, and I don't suggest you hide them from people you look up to. You have credibility and an enormous wealth of goodwill to draw upon. Now is the time to trust yourself; you've waited long enough.
Hah. I dod not have ANY kind of plausible long-range plan. It's been bugging me for years that I can't figure one out! Fail!
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
It looks to me like your mind is on fire, like you have so many ideas you will never get them all done.
Same old, same old...
First slow down; there is a weird kind of illusion that you're under and it's pushing you to go faster than you need.
Also same old, same old. I like to call that illusion, "oh crap, I only have what, a month and a half?"
Second, try to think in some terms other than strictly linear. Look for one good idea and go with it: I mean the real gem. You may need to express some of your ideas on paper, so you can see what you've got to work with. It will be easier to evaluate them that way. Once you find the special pearl, many of your other concepts, plans and schemes will find a home. What you need is that one, very strong organizing principle to have some perspective. And you will.
Well, I will probably be working on that "on paper" thing around these parts as I plan for my talk.
First is the newsletter stuff (weekly?), then the yearly.
Taurus (April 19-May 20)
For a while, trying to figure out how writing careers work, I read a lot of Wiki pages on authors. I began to see a pattern. Many of them were unknown nobodys until one day they were somebody really special. Before and after, they brushed their teeth and took their coffee with however many sugars. Their cat did not notice the difference (but cats are smart, so you never know). But the recognition came, often after a long, exasperating delay. Why it came when it did was often a matter that could, at least, be identified in their astrology: they had one of the five of six big transits of their lifetime. You now have such a transit developing; in fact, several of them. While you are waiting the relatively short time for this to happen, you have a little time to make up your mind about a few things, such as what is possible. Your job is not to conquer anything or make anything happen or even to get people to notice you. Rather, in my view, it is to adjust your beliefs to the point where you at least concede anything is possible, evidence of which you can find by (for example) looking at the career trajectories of people who are doing some version of what you want to do the most. While you are noticing the at times comical befores and afters, notice the core theme, which is that most of them were doing exactly what they wanted to do the most when this elusive thing known as success transformed their lives. Also notice the pattern of how incredibly insecure many of the most luminous people have been throughout the ages, and perhaps stop using this as an excuse to convince yourself of what is not possible.
OMFG.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
In recent years, groups and communities of various kinds have played such a diversity of roles in your life, you may not know what to think. I see them showing up as islands of hope and idealism, as blatantly deceptive, as points of crisis, as things that are designed to make you feel secure but really have the opposite effect...and about 12 more permutations on reality. A crucial one has been to focus your process of actually finding and making peace with your identity, in particular, with how different you are. You may finally be noticing matters gradually improving: that is, you are, at least, getting the hint of a clue about the nature of this odd karma around collective energy. In some ways it seems you are searching for the family you never had; families are often a substitute for the tribe or village we never had, and (at least in the United States) could not until recent years hope to reconstruct. Society is changing fast, and it is d oing so partly by necessity and partly as a consequence of humans realizing that life is not a long ride alone in an SUV. The turning point this year involves putting group or tribal energy to work for you. For too long, you have made one sacrifice after another, hoping to build, create or establish some sense of a world around you. There is only so far that an individual can go, doing this on their own. Beyond a certain point, the collective you are working to connect, create or awaken must come into its own, and there is very little that one person can do except be a focus of awareness and stay out of the way. That -- and look for the benefits that are available, and promise yourself that you'll enjoy them.
"ASTROLOGY FOR TAURUS this year gives the most interesting image of simultaneous interior and exterior development. There is considerable tension between the two, because one is invisible and one is visible; one is public and one is private.
Yet there is the potential for authentic harmony and synergy. And not coincidentally, there are a lot of new experiences suddenly developing on the radar of your life, perhaps faster than you can track them. What is clear is that you're ready for them. Situations developing in your external world, for example, your professional life or your relationships, are only now catching up with an even longer series of developments in your inner life -- though those have been well concealed from the view of most others, you have surely felt the movement within yourself.
The proof that they were developing is specifically what you are now experiencing and witnessing in your life, but you need to go deeper than needing evidence in the external world. Indeed, you would be wise to set your skepticism aside and live like you understand you are standing in the rare opportunity that it is. If your life has often felt like you had opportunities you were not ready for, or that you were ready for opportunities that were not available, raise a glass to the meeting place where preparation encounters the occasion for action.
And action is what it's all about. If you are the kind of Taurus who prefers to make your changes incrementally, consider how that might look. That would be a conscious, steady process of development, one that could be documented, for example, in a diary with tangible events. The further you stray from such a documentable series of events in lieu of dancing around on the mental plane, the more likely you are to make your physical changes volcanically, in a way that you would normally consider against your nature. In other words, if you take action, your changes will be gentler. If you think, plan and plan of thinking, your world will pop like a zit every now and then, leaving you wondering what happened.
Either way, you will make unexpected progress, so make sure you plan for what you have not planned for. That's another way of saying be flexible. You may not experience that flexibility in the passive sense of merely being willing to do what's expected of you; rather, progress comes in the form of taking initiative. This will appeal to your sense of control, and it's entirely more productive than control that's based on resistance.
One of the most salient features of your charts relates to how you are searching inwardly for some clear sense or vision of who you are. It's as if you're looking through a pinhole and trying to align an image of yourself with your own inner eye looking back at you. At the same time, you are expressing yourself in the world in new ways, but as you do so, you're experiencing an external identity crisis that seems to dramatize what you're going through inwardly. It's an interesting dance.
Yes, the two processes are related, but they're not the same thing. One of them is inherently private, and the other is inherently social. By social, I mean that it's a realtime experience in the physical world rather than a primarily mental experience or inner visioning process. One is conceptual and the other is experiential. The most significant difference is that realtime experiences exist in a dynamic world of different people, generally unpredictable, and all of whom -- no matter what it may seem -- are striving, struggling or in some way succeeding at finding their role in the drama of life.
To coexist with others in the dynamic world, you need to engage in a process of give and take, and a process of conscious, almost nonstop experimentation. None of these things are fixed or static. As you express yourself, you change yourself and this in turn changes others who relate to you. As others express themselves, they shift their awareness and yours. The process constantly creates reality as something new. It is possible to hold onto what was, but only as a mental figment. To live in contact with others, it is necessary to be real, in the present, no matter how strange or uncomfortable it may feel at first.
Both Love and Work
PROFESSIONAL ASPIRATIONS may try to trump love and even sex, but I don't suggest you take that road. In the next section we'll come to your creative and work scene, which is indeed quite a scene. But it is your success, whether you think you have it or not, that is the pheromone emitter, and by success I mean your connecting to an authentic purpose. It is also your sense of doubt that is so magnetic. You are working with more power than you yet recognize, and that vaguely clueless quality you possess is extremely attractive. At the same time the energy knocking at your inner door is saying, "OK, the time has come that you consciously feel me. I am you."
You are making an effort. That alone is incredibly appealing. Just about everyone knows that just about everyone sits around and talks about things they might someday do. Having got over this one yourself, you know what I am talking about. You are at last realizing that words are not enough to shape your goals into reality, and that the non-accomplished commitments you have made in the past were blocking your road to achieving a higher commitment to yourself.
A collection of planets in two zones of your chart -- the 10th house (your professional life, found in Aquarius) and your 8th house (Sagittarius, deep surrender, commitment, the resources of others) is pushing you to be different and to seek different experiences within yourself. I recognize that there is a vast portion of the Taurus psyche that is steadfastly committed to being steadfast; a good girl or a good boy; one who is known for their reserve, conserve, preserve and for getting only what they deserve, in fact, to the penny. There is also a stuborn quality, and unmovable force, that keeps the status quo painfully appealing to you. This is like the story of the bull contemplating the Moon: it allows you to dream about the dream, and by dreaming, it leaves the world behind.
That is not enough. Your elegant, understated presentation is a veil over your volcanic interior. The two are constantly at odds, but these days it's getting to feel like a silk scarf thrown over Mt. Aetna. Your charts are quite literally erupting, and you are poised to make your mark on the world in a way that you never have in your life; and like few people you have ever known. You are doing this with original ideas, and that certain je ne sais quoi is coming exactly from this part of your life. The lust for expressive freedom is what is driving your lust for lust itself, and that passion wants to be set free -- just like your ideas. This is the time to move, to allow your body to surrender to the inner force bursting out, to take action, and to boldly stop dreaming about it, and just do it.
Your opposite sign is Scorpio, and this is the symbol of your relationships. It's not that you always need Scorpios in your life (it happens occasionally, though); this merely presents a picture. In this picture, you are accustomed to people wanting to control you, to possess you, or people insisting on some traditional form of 'commitment'. You respond in kind. It is true that most people will do anything to feel accepted, but you need a higher standard than playing a game that will in the end snuff out your creative process and your growth. Your relationships, therefore, need to feed your freedom; your ideas about freedom; and your ability to express yourself. For that letting go of the need to be cocooned and nurtured is a necessary emotional step, as the ability to surrender your power to others comes from a deep need for security. You allow yourself to be controlled in order to experience the creative release of stepping out from the grip others might have had on you.
Yet these experiences are not more important than relationship itself; art and work are about inner development and also about making contact with humanity, as you are offering your gifts. In other words, the idea is not to reach artistic escape velocity and go at warp speed into your private creative cosmos; nor to create a public image that eclipses your inner need for human warmth. Rather, the idea is to experience your creative process and your experiences of love and passion in a way that is mutually supportive. This is one of those razor's edges. People have so much difficulty integrating anything that we need separate record stores for jazz and blues, even though the distinction is artificial -- just like nearly all distinctions.
This challenging equilibrium asks for some heartfelt generosity on your part -- that is to go beyond the hunger of self-preservation and to be willing to share it all within yourself first, and with others, next. I speak of the work you offer to the world, to yourself, and to your sexual life as well. You have a way of holding back, mainly from yourself, and it's time to let go of that. This inner boundary has a starving quality to it, as if the fear of losing one part of you to the other has forced you to choose, one or the other -- a false dilemma.
I think that with love and sex, the key is this. You are discovering how utterly unique you are in all the world. Most people, upon making this discovery, go out of their way to cover up the simple truth. We all feel different sexually. That inner sense of difference can be terrifying, since we expect that once people catch wind, we're not going to have any friends or a job and that our family is going to put us up for adoption even at the age of 56. Furthermore, there is the corresponding idea that if people find out that you like to be fucked blindfolded down in the boiler room (or whatever your particular thing is), it's all over. But your life is pushing you to be different and to stand out and I am happy to tell you that you have no choice in the matter.
That, in turn, is creating some interesting twists in your relationships, and the standard to set is to surround yourself with people who respond positively and affirmatively to you as you actually are, and who support your need to be free from your old self. You, in turn, need to break the mold that says that the present has to be like the past, and that you need to conform to some particular doctrine: be it of all things heading toward marriage or some specific form of commitment or monogamy (please see Scorpio for a discussion of this); of relationships lasting a certain length of time in order to be considered valid or worth bothering with; or of needing a certain kind of person, determined a priori or otherwise having none at all.
Specifically involving sex, there are some interesting patterns. There is still a ball of fire spinning in your house of surrender, orgasm and death -- Sagittarius. The most visceral of these energies is curiosity. That arrives in the form of Pholus. One form this energy takes is curiosity that leads to unlikely places and ultimately unleashes a torrent of events, changes, developments and complete transformation. Small causes will lead to big effects -- but isn't that the story of sex (and of love, and of astrology)?
If you are in reaction to this energy, you may fear your own curiosity and do whatever you can to suppress it. This probably takes the form of a relationship, deeply connected to the past, that protects you from this urge. This is, to put it mildly, not a good idea. In the end, if you take this path, you will have even less control over how the energy expresses itself, and keep feeling the frustration that has, for so long, been your companion. (Frustration is connected to pleasure denial, to guilt, and some abortive quality in the creative sexual department.)
The next thing you want to watch is how family patterns repeat themselves. They do so because they are choreographed, we internalize them, and all our lives we tend to hear the drumming we heard when we were kids. In order to change these patterns, you're going to need to become a drummer -- not just a dancer. This is a reading of Quaoar in Sagittarius. You need to take an active role in setting the patterns of your relationships, and you can do so. The key thing will be discerning the difference between active and passive. I suggest you head straight for the dictionary and look up these words.
The passive phase of your relationships is over. It is over even if you thought you were being active during those days -- what you thought then is of little consequence now, particularly if you weren't working with all the facts. For this you will need to acknowledge some cosmic laziness, some well-built self-idealism, and address the necessity to go beyond your comfort zones, to take risks, and to make an effort to manifest yourself. It sounds like work, but at the end it is really about fun; and talking in Taurus terms, the best investment you can make at this time of your life.
Finally, I warmly recommend that you meditate on the idea that anyone is capable of anything. That means you, and it means everyone else. This is the true meaning of potential. It is the story of how Ixion is influencing your relationships (please see minor planet section for review of Ixion). This is an extremely complicated planet, but it is about our relationship to potential -- to all potential, for good or for ill; yours or that of someone else. The whole issue with potential is that as we develop the power to create, we also create the power to destroy. Others who influence us profoundly gain some of the same power in our lives.
The whole charade of predictable, highly choreographed relationships is an effort to cloak or protect against this one potential. I suggest you make friends with it, so that you can live your life fully rather than watch it go by.
Saturn, Chiron and Creative Passion
Saturn moving through your 5th solar house is pulling you toward the necessity of creative passion. I absolutely assure you -- you can stand in Border's Books and read astrology chapters till your fingers go numb and you won't find a 5th house Saturn interpretation vaguely resembling this. But that's the story. Saturn points to the way to what must be (good thing too, I currently have Saturn transiting my writing house and I've just written 40,000 words of horoscopes; you are reading the final few paragraphs of that project).
Saturn has a tendency to clear, restructure, open the way, provide a foundation, and give us the materials to build. The thing is, it may not come easy; the opportunity is there, you just have to go get it, create it, put the Craigs List posting up, and basically do the legwork. You need to devote time to working actively, steadily, a little every day and a heck of a lot some other days.
There will be times when your energy seems blocked. If so, go for the mental block first; identify it, then take action. You are way too accustomed to addressing the mental block and then watching the world, hoping action takes you.
I began with a discussion of your 10th house, though I didn't exactly call it that (I also slipped in the 12th house, Aries, but didn't say that either). The 10th is your house of expression in the outer world; your career; your calling in life; your achievements. Most people ignore this house. You have a lot of Centaur action in this house now, specifically Chiron and Nessus. You feel the potential for success, for failure, for fucking up the lives/careers of others, for your past failures to come back to you, for the rewards of good honest work and, as well, for miracles to happen. Chiron mainly works through things that seem like discomfort, and we work to get solid and stable. It's said by herbalists that if you want a strong herb, grow it in soil that's not quite right. The plant will compensate by becoming stronger, more potent and therefore more useful. This is you.
If you feel like you don't quite fit in professionally, but you're doing or actively attempting to do what you really want to do -- you are in the right place. You never want to be chummy chummy in your career; you always need to be on the edge, a little controversial or a lot, having the right friends and pissing off the right jerks. Tell the truth and let people deal with it. Taurus is the sign of the voice. Use yours, and remember that you are only as good as your word.
In this whole exciting process, you have to count your failures as successes. For this exercise, Chiron will reward you lavishly. Look at how your supposed failures reveal, first, that you honestly tried; and second, what you need to do -- and then do it. Use the clues you got to build strength, awareness, and to strive for your freedom. Take these experiences, analyze them and move on to the next thing quickly. Chiron also rewards you for documenting your progress, your work, your ideas and your achievements: Chiron rewards documentation. Keep track of what you're doing, keep track of your history, keep your portfolio and your website and your résumé impeccable.
That is the story, Taurus. I am going to leave out a lengthy discussion of money in honor of yours being the money sign. You're a Taurus. Forget this struggle. Do what you want and need to do, and you will thrive. I recognize that there are many Taureans with money issues; your particular money house is, after all, Gemini -- the sign of opposites, so we can surmise that there are two distinct sides to that coin. But any astrologer still in business will tell you that no Taurus needs to struggle financially, and this is from experience and not from books. This being said, I'll leave you with a clue. There is a valve up in your house of other people's resources, and it's under so much pressure it's about to blow open. This translates to: business loans, investment dollars, grants, gifts and perhaps inheritances.
Before you get involved with someone, check them out carefully. The right investor will change your life -- and so will the wrong one. Good luck, ask questions and listen to the answers.
MARS, YOUR MAIN SQUEEZE planet, does not go retrograde so often, but when it does it really goes for it. The process works itself out for six months every two years and as of January we're in the late-middle phase. This time around, Mars is working its way over the Gemini-Cancer line, a total of three times. It has done so twice and as of this writing, Mars is slowly moving backwards through Gemini.
This is not the only transition in your life or in your chart. As you have read elsewhere, Pluto, your other ruling planet, is in the process of one of its extremely rare sign changes, from Sagittarius to Capricorn. This is a big change for everyone, but it's a particularly big change for you. So get ready for the ride of your life. Don't hold on tight -- just let go and see where you end up. Where you have opportunities to make decisions, they will be pretty obvious.
An Alternate Reality
Suffice it to say that you are not quite yourself at the moment, or rather you are experimenting with some alternative versions of self that are making you question your ways, and the ways of others. I see you in one of those sci-fi episodes where you are suddenly introduced to another aspect of yourself or the world that you didn't know existed, or odder yet, that you forgot existed.I'm trying to think of a visceral example for this that does not involve a mind-altering substance, because they have an unusual way of pulling back the veil. But I can't think of one that would be common enough to relate to. You're sitting in a room and suddenly you're in a different place -- a completely different place. Same chair, but the feeling is entirely new, the light has changed, the faces look just slightly unfamiliar and the feeling is different and somehow you are different. It feels distinctly real, and you wonder where it was a moment ago, now that it's suddenly there.
What is this room? Is it your sensorium? Your whole psyche? Is it the space of your relationships? Is it your view of your life? Is it literally a different geographic place where you never expected to be? For sure, it's one important place where your encounters with others occur -- it's a shared space in any event, not a solitary one. You are not alone. You may be wondering if others around you feel the shift, if they can sense your perception or if they have any sense of the understanding that you have.
It might be altogether different if you didn't have the distinct sense that how you feel has the power to change reality for others, in particular by your questioning the depth of a commitment or wondering if you did not have yourself all wrong -- or someone else all wrong.
What is more likely is that your perception of your circumstances is altering, and others are either not noticing, or have consciously extended consent for you to feel what you feel. You have more freedom than you think, particularly if the most significant thing on your mind is being present for your own feelings and your experience of life in a conscious way. You will not rip the fabric of reality by your perceptions alone. However, what I suggest you hold off on is committing to your doubts.
Notice them, respect them, be with them, but you don't need to announce them. What would be more prudent would be asking how others feel any time you want. This does two things: first and most significantly, it is relational. Enquiring about how someone feels is an act of companionship. Second, it allows you to reality-check. You can be certain enough that the perceptions of others will provide you with vital information that you can use to size up your situation and make your choices.
When a planet is retrograde, it's a smart idea not to make firm commitments that could shape your life. Rather, leave the possibilities open. Mars stations direct relatively early in the year (the end of January) but there is sufficiently intense activity all through February as the retrograde works out (in forward motion, this time) that you might want to coast for a while and make decisions as late as possible. This is particularly true if you are feeling fear in any form.
The most helpful thing when you're feeling fear is usually information. And the longer you wait, particularly through February, the more information you will have and the better your decisions will be.
Part of the drama you're experiencing or about to experience involves the sign change of Pluto from Sagittarius to Capricorn. Pluto is your planet too, who you met later along the journey of your incarnations. Pluto is about to take root in Capricorn, which I am certain you will find comes as an enormous relief. You get to cool down (but not too cool, because Capricorn is a vibrant energy, full of initiative). You get to apply your ideas, you get to change your ideas and best of all, you get to focus and explore the impact that you have on the world by way of your thoughts.
That may not seem too encouraging now, when your thoughts consist of at least 50% doubts and you are concerned that those doubts will impact others. You can relax and give yourself freedom to think and feel whatever you need to think or feel.
By way of a second introduction, I will add this. Scorpio is one of the most complex signs in the zodiac. You have no doubt noticed this. You are extremely dynamic and energetic and at the same time one of the most deeply introverted people around. Pluto's journey through Sagittarius has pushed, pulled, stretched and dragged you out of your scorpion shell.
While you may not have appreciated this at the time, you are a freer, more independent person as a result of this transition -- and you are prepared for the next long phase of your journey, which involves working out a new relationship with your life mission, with your profession and with your culture. In essence, you are being invited or compelled to participate in a deeper way. The confidence you have gained in recent years will help you -- no matter what insecurities you may be feeling now.
The Inner Couple
RELATIONSHIPS are about agreements, and they are about the agreements we have with ourselves. Sexual encounters, which often lead to relationships, are also about agreements, though this is usually less conscious.With your ruling planet Mars retrograding toward or into Gemini as of this writing in December 2007, you have a story about a major inquiry into the nature of your agreements with others. At the same time, you're under the influence of one of the small worlds in this same house (your 8th house, that of contracts, shared resources and erotic surrender) -- that being Chaos, named for one of the prime Greek creation deities.
Human consciousness often seems to be trapped in dualism. It's so pervasive we don't often see it: a world of "us and them" and of separate interests. Chaos, an important new discovery now in Gemini, is doing a questioning for you. Gemini is one of your relationship houses.
Chaos here is blurring the usual boundaries between self and other, between us and them, and between the divided elements of self that exist within us. This is necessary for any truly creative process to take part in our relationships. This is because we have an inner couple within ourselves, two parts that are either fighting, hiding, or playing. Being conscious of how this inner dynamic occurs is a good start toward perceiving its reflection on the outside. Too often, our relationships crystallize into robotic patterns, as if this inner relationship was static and preordered. This in turn precludes nearly any possibility for something original or daring to happen.
What we need to do is get that inner dance going; we need to disorder the established order of our inner couple relationship and get the energy moving. The relationship becomes static under several circumstances, which are easy enough to understand. For example, we might become overly identified with our concept of what it means to be a man or a woman, and lose awareness that we possess attributes of both. We might get stuck with an idea one or both of our parents had about us, and forget that we create ourselves as we go.
You need a measure of unpredictability, and you need it badly. This is in part because there has been so much unmitigated discovery in your own life in recent years, which carries into the present time. All that momentum has to go someplace. Scorpio has been under the very intense influence of the extremely restless sign Sagittarius, due to Pluto's presence there. Much other in this sign has recently dragged you through the most profound period of self-questioning of your life. While that focus is finally cooling off, and you seem ready to write the book about what happened, you still have plenty of fuel for self-exploration, and indeed such a habit, once cultivated, will not go away easily.
Though it may be difficult at times, the best you can hope for is for the people close to you to be equally in a state of flux, willing to dive into the unknown and most of all, willing to explore both (or all four, or all eight) sides of their nature as you investigate your own. A good time to review the commitments made and the values they responded to.
Scorpios are known for their controlling attitudes in relationships. Whether this is true or not, that is the reputation of your sign, and I have seen that there is at least an element of truth to this. The other side of this equation is that many Scorpios are conscious of this tendency and do whatever they can to go the other direction, and this often results in a kind of overcompensation. You can turn into a people-pleaser. The movement of Mars through Gemini, as well as Pluto, your other ruling planet changing signs to Capricorn, suggests a profound phase of reevaluation, and I would like to offer some thoughts where sex and relating are concerned.
I have a term I use, to describe a common state of relationship: 'gunpoint monogamy'. That is, monogamy at the point of a gun. If you 'cheat' (have sex with someone else), you're out. Monogamy, or the idea of it, is like the gag reflex: it's not what you would call intellectually based. There is logic to it, but it's emotional and usually based on primal fear. Jealousy is an emotion so strong that few people question its validity. If something feels that strong, it must be true. To question jealousy is, for many people, something that goes entirely against their intuition.
I personally do not believe that most people are actually monogamous -- so in my book of life, I give everyone room to stray. No matter how much you love someone, there are times you just have to fuck someone else, and there are many people we love. This is true for men and women both.
At the same time, we often have to deal with our partners cheating, or the expectation that they will. My solution to cheating is to change the rules. Then there's a new rule -- total disclosure. In that case, cheating, rather than being about fucking, loving or wanting someone else, would become not talking about it. It's a new standard for integrity, and it's meaningful because the communication that this facilitates brings us closer together.
Doing this takes adjustment, and it takes questioning values we were taught (or had rammed down our throats) as children. Jealousy is intense for a lot of people, often too intense to bear and avoided at any cost; and it masks a world of other insecurities that have nothing to do with relationships; fear of abandonment, rejection, comparison and competition, shame, to name a few. When we put jealousy onto the table as a negotiable discussion point, it loses some or most of its power. To do this takes work -- real commitment, to communication, not just to the concept of monogamy. And it requires a commitment to the energy of sharing. We often forget that an "exclusive" relationship means that we exclude. How do we reckon this with our profound need to be included? Do you ever think that the world would be a less lonely place if everyone were not so intent on excluding as a way of life?
Humans must be given the space to be free, and that includes ourselves. We are often reluctant to take any freedom, fearing that it will alienate others, shake them up, compel them to leave us and thus leave us out in the cold.
Then we may fear that others will cheat. However, I assure you that people are less likely to 'cheat' if integrity has a more complex and sensitive definition. I think it's incredibly important not to take the moral high ground of monogamy. Not only do the tables turn in physical reality (the roles reverse; we blink our eyes, and end up on the other side of the discussion), most people would never reveal what they are thinking the last 10 seconds before they orgasm alone.
You cannot control anyone, but you can set the stage for fidelity by allowing people to be fidelitous to their own nature. You can live with the assurance of conscious agreements, rather than unspoken ones. With someone new, you have to find out what they are about. With someone you've been with a while, you are likely to be making many significant discoveries about them now.
I suggest that you both go out of your way to be especially open now about your past history, your fantasies, your masturbation, and what you want now and what you think you may want in the future. I assure you that your openness will make your relationship hotter, sexier and more emotionally intimate -- or it will reveal that there was not much of a relationship after all. Either way, you will come out ahead.
Remember: passion is an expression of freedom. You cannot catch love in a jar. It dies unless it is free and allowed to be itself. I think that fidelity, as in living the truth, stands a lot better chance of happening in an environment where the truth is made welcome at any other cost.
Your Resources and Your Money
One effect of Mars retrograde is questioning your financial commitments and arrangements with others. This is a perfect time to do it. You have lived through a decade-plus of Pluto in Sagittarius, and that has come with a potent blast of learning to be self-sufficient. You have gained some real independence financially and also ideologically.In other words, it's fair to say that at this point in your life, you live based on your own values and are far less influenced by those of others, or at least others who you just don't agree with. You can choose your influences; you can choose who to play with; you can choose who to share your resources, your money and your body with. This power of choosing emphasizes that in order to share, you need to choose consciously.
One thing I trust you have learned during this phase is that you have to make your money in ways that are in affinity with your spiritual values. This is another way of saying you know beyond all doubt that you need to have the same values all seven days of the week. If you are vaguely unhappy at work, ask yourself how the business makes its money, and why it makes its money. Do you actually agree with what happens? If you don't, you might want to reconsider what you're doing.
In truth you have the potential to be a lot wealthier than you are currently, and that transition can happen fast. You need to follow your curiosity to get there, but another level of economic success is available to you right now. Based on the structure of your solar chart, this should be absolutely no problem for you. Astrologers learn to question when anyone born under Taurus or Scorpio claims to have financial problems; of all the signs, for these two it is a positively ridiculous notion.
However, aspects lasting well over a year put you in a position where you have some extraordinary power to not only have more but to also change your level of economic reality.
So, too, is an approach to finance that is decidedly less honest. As I have suggested, you really do have all the potential in you now. You just need to be careful what you choose, what you emphasize and thus what you magnify. The planet involved is Ixion. Still, this same potential basically grants you the ability to be exactly what you want or need to be.
I can offer one practical clue about business, which is to keep your affairs local. There is at the moment and for the foreseeable future tremendous emphasis on your local environment; your city or town, in particular, and you will find your greatest successes there.
Creativity and Career
Scorpio is one of the most important signs for commerce, but your chart says that your creative power is difficult for any other sign to match. I don't mean to be competitive, but you are working with the power of both Leo and Pisces in these areas of your life, combining the force of two or more creative energies.Pisces, for its part, is your house of art and creative love -- the 5th. That is pretty good, particularly with Uranus blowing through town for the next three years. You are an innovator. You will be much happier if you are actually involving yourself in some aspect of innovation. Dive in and take a chance. No matter what you are doing, it will benefit from a more radical, colorful, daring approach.
Don't worry about shocking people -- most of them are bored and prefer the excitement. Don't worry about your boss or bosses -- most of the time, innovation is rewarded if you have the psychological chops to stand up to people, and you know that you do. To really do something creative, you have to have some guts; some intensity, and you qualify.
I will leave you with some words of advice from an artist for Time magazine, who used to visit the communication design department every year and give a presentation to the senior class. This was at SUNY Buffalo.
Basically, his message was this. Being an artist (in the professional sense) does not necessarily mean you get to create whatever you want. It means that you have a creative gift that you get to apply to the different situations and circumstances you encounter in the course of your work. Possessing true creativity implies that you have the ability to respond, apply your ideas and most of all come up with creative solutions where other people might come up with boring ones.
This is the approach to take to your work now. This is indeed the approach to take to your life. It will work just as well in your love affairs, by the way, as it will in any other. And in particular, it's a handy trick to have in a time of transition, with all its challenges and unpredictable developments.
Conclusion
2008 is a leap year, and you are taking a leap. When you look back, it will seem like a quantum leap -- that is, you went from one place to another without actually touching the space in between. But you are at the moment actually touching the ground between one lifetime and the next.Given the extent and the intensity of the change in your life, I suggest that you keep all your options open, for as long as you feel good doing so. In other words, when the time comes to choose, you will know -- but for now, particularly with Mars still retrograde and/or taking its time coming out of retrograde, hold off on major decisions until you have the additional information that is forthcoming.
I want to add one comment here that, reviewing my charts, I have overlooked -- but perhaps it will stand out if I sign off from this essay with it. You are an exceptionally good companion, and you are better than ever before. You are loyal, you are compassionate and you understand the need for emotional freedom. But you may doubt yourself. Indeed, you may feel like you are some kind of damaged goods. I want to encourage you to at least make a commitment to setting that notion aside.
Give yourself a chance to be someone else, or something else. So much is changing in your life that you can afford to release others from your expectations of them, and to release yourself from your sometimes oppressive expectations of yourself. Give it a chance. I could say that you have more to gain than you have to lose, but in truth you have only to gain.
Aquarian is my favorite, of course. God, ain't that the truth.aries (Mar. 21st-Apr. 20th)
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
No, auld acquaintance be called up,
It's ex-booty time!
taurus (Apr. 21st-May 20th)
They'll spoon you when you're sleeping,
They'll screw when you're awake.
They'll spank you just because you're good,
So be good for sex's sake!
gemini (May 21st-June 21st)
City sidewalks, busy sidewalks,
Dressed in holiday style.
In the air,
There's a feeling,
of Dionysus.
People laughing,
Strangers passing,
Meeting stare after stare.
And on ev'ry street corner you'll hear,
"Hey, hot-stuff!" "Hey, hot-stuff!"
"I want to lick your big booty."
"You're a doll," hear them call,
Soon it will be Christmas lay.
cancer (June 22nd-July 22nd)
Chestnuts roasting on a George Forman
The boss doing coke up his nose
Vicious rumors being spread by doormen
And folks dressed up like trashy ho's.
Everybody knows a Trojan and some Astroglide
Help to make the office party bright
Buzzed Cancers with their flies open wide
Will find it hard to sleep tonight.
scorpio (Oct. 24th-Nov. 22nd)
Ding dong ding dong,
You can't go wrong,
With a dildo,
You big phat ho.
capricorn (Dec. 22nd-Jan. 20th)
O Capricorn, O Capricorn,
Thy quiet charm is just like porn!
aquarius (Jan. 21st-Feb. 18th)
You're a mean one, Aquarius
You really are a heel,
You're as cuddly as a cactus, you're as charming as an eel, Aquarius,
If you can't make your mind up then go play the field!
You're a monster, Aquarius,
Your heart's an empty hole,
Your loins are full of indecision, you have anti-commitment powder in your soul, Aquarius,
You wouldn't touch a relationship with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole!
You're a rotter, Aquarius,
You're the king of breaking hearts,
Spare a thought for the splotched tomatoes you leave behind you, Aquarius,
Don't be a three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce!
"What isn't quite emphasized is the fact that Capricorn is ruled by Saturn. It's not a coincidence Capricorn starts off the harsh season of Winter and on the darkest day of the year. Capricorns are just as emo as Scorpios. The difference is they don't wear their emo on their sleeve. They are not tortured artists. They are tortured souls. Out of all the feminine signs, they struggle the most with the battle between head and heart. Water signs are free to be as neurotic as possible. Taurus clearly has no problem expressing her emotions, and she usually does it by way of material things. Virgo shows she cares by her actions; like Pisces, she really likes to be a martyr. What does Capricorn have? How does she express her feelings when she's too busy trying to get ahead in life? The business world has no room for crying."
"Scorpio—Other peoples’ nervous breakdowns set you on
edge. When did you become your brother’s keeper? Surprise, Scorpio! The
Universe is calling on you to perform service to your family and
friends. You may wonder what makes you so special. I’ll tell you. Your
innate strength makes you best suited right now to prop up some shaky
situations. Consider it an honor that the Universe recognizes this in
you."
God, that's how it goes every bloody year.
"However, there are a few issues you need to work through to get to your goal of love and marriage.
My first impression when I looked at your chart was that you are a person grew up in a overprotective atmosphere. Your Sun in the zodiac sign of Taurus is opposite Saturn, which usually indicates a restrictive upbringing, “for your own good”. It is an out of sign opposition, which weakens the effect, but you did experience a childhood where girls’ behavior was closely monitored, and your brother experienced greater freedom of movement. You were enjoined and praised for being a “good girl”, which I am sure you were. But being a “good girl” also denied you avenues of personal growth. For one thing, despite Pluto running over your Uranus/Venus opposition, which is a cry for personal freedom in your chart, you are still looking for the traditional avenues of personal fulfillment, love and marriage. Perhaps all you’ve gotten out of this transit is a sense that you are “different” from other girls, but nothing can be further from the truth.
An important planet for you is Chiron which sits at the top of your chart, one of four points in a Grand Cross in mutable signs. Chiron talks about a wound that is difficult to heal. It manifests in conditions that cause us emotion pain. A Grand Cross in Mutable signs calls for adaptability in face of changing conditions. One effect of a Grand Cross is that when one point of the Cross is activated, the energy zings around the chart affecting other other parts of your life. For you this effects your health, the health of other people around you, your higher ideals and communications you receive. One would surmise from such a Cross that you are often expected to care for the health of a family member, most likely your mother or another female relative, which is a cause of the restrictions in your life. Your pain is that these restrictions are making it difficult for you to live your own life.
Your Grand Trine does not help you in that it allows you to acquiesce to the demands of others. It also feeds what some have called the Cinderella Complex. Cinderella does everything she is supposed to do, despite hardships, and she is rewarded by magically being allowed to go to ball, being swept away into the arms of Prince Charming and eventually living happily ever after. But life is not a fairy tale, and if we want something to happen, we need to make it happen. You aren’t Cinderella and Prince Charming crept off a long time ago with some of the help.
Both Chiron and Neptune in the sky right now are making long slow transits of your fifth house of romance churning up your romantic desires to be swept away from your life as it is right now. Neptune feeds overly romantic thoughts, and Chiron makes you painfully aware of what you don’t have. You are not seeing the issue clearly, and this you need to work on.
First you need to separate your needs from that of your family. As long as you allow them to do so, they will continue rely on you to be a caretaker. You are in your twenties now and it is well past time to leave the nest. If you have not pursued an education, you should do so. If you have, go back for a master’s or doctorate degree, away from home, anyplace where you can live on your own and experience life without the well intentioned interference of your family. Only until you discover who you really are, what you really need, will you be in full control of your choices, including, who to marry and when to have children."
"One of the hints the chart gives us to look at is the aspects to the Nodes—especially if you have squares to the Nodes. Many people have this aspect, which is called: the skipped step. To understand it you need to let your imagination roam around the meaning of the planet that is squared. Again, what sign is it in? What house? There is something in the nature of this placement that is telling you what you need to do as part of your process of getting to the North Node. You need to pick up the unfinished business here—there is something about what that skipped step is about that remains as a complex or as a forgotten way of thinking that needs to be addressed and brought into your life now. You can understand that skipped step as being a karmic “bad habit” from a former life, or simply a blind spot in your psyche.
Blind spot? The skipped step is often what we don’t want to look at or deal with—it’s the missing piece of the puzzle, the dropped stitch, the piece that needs the most priority in your life now, and often receives the least.
For example: today I did a reading for a woman who had so many skills and abilities, yet she was feeling quite stuck for a number of reasons. We touched on what those issues were about, but I was left with the feeling that if she would take care of her body/health, then the rest would fall into place rather easily. She needed to address the square to her Nodes, which pointed to the 6th house of health. And, at this point in her life I felt there was a certain urgency to it.
Jeffrey Green and Steven Forrest were the first I know of to call this aspect the skipped step. The blockages and distortions that are symbolized by the planet and house that is square to the Nodes is a critical piece to consider when looking at a chart. Yet nothing is ever truly skipped or lost—it’s just put away till another time, or done unconsciously. But for those who want more direct answers to life direction and soul purpose questions, these aspects are a wealth of information. Ironically, as easy as they are to see, they’re never easy to understand."
Well, I got into the conference to talk about astrology! Huzzah!
The topic is going to be Saturn/personal planet connections, your personality, with some synastry thrown in. Basically, Sun/Saturn, Moon/Saturn, Mars/Saturn and Venus/Saturn. (Mercury/Saturn doesn't seem to mess people up nearly as bad, so I'm skipping that one.) Naturally, I've gone on about the last one quite a bit, but I plan on doing a lot of research, posting notes/links here, etc. Yay, excuse for research!
Right now I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions as to how to channel Mars/Saturn energy if a physical outlet can't be used. I know someone in this situation and ah...let's just say that right now he channels it in a "gets angry at everyone around him" sort of way. He used to be an active guy, but he won't be able to do much beyond walking ever again, so I was kind of at a loss as to how to advise his wife on this. At any rate, I'd like to have some solutions as to how to cope with the Big Four to talk about in my talk.
If anyone has any suggestions as to how they handle theirs, or any suggestions/links/thoughts they have on these aspects, let me know!
