Where the Sun and Moon, Jupiter and Saturn, are concerned there are no HIGHER octaves, just equal octaves, because the Sun truly is one with Jupiter and the Moon (via Earth) is one with Saturn... though the latter pair clearly indicate a duality, the Moon is private and personal, Saturn more public and impersonal (or less personal than the Moon).
Where the Sun represents Creator (the Circle), and individuals are as Co-Creators (the Dot at Center), Jupiter is the Creation... where the Sun represents pure being and vitality Jupiter is the outwardly expressed form, feeling and imagery that completes it. Where the Moon represents the need for emotional security Saturn is the harsh reality of this inherent insecurity and the way to having more stability (functionality) in one's personal existence.
The rest is as follows:
Mars and Pluto - the Individual and Universal Will, respectively. Keeping the fundamentally important Martial qualities (as with all "lower octaves") intact there is a necessity where Pluto is concerned to transcend all purely personal and selfish motivations/desires and uplift one's central intention for positive action.
Venus and Neptune - Personal and Universal Love, respectively... both are Divine though the vast ocean of Neptune is macrocosm to the personal love of Venus experienced by a lovely local seashore. Neptune is the transcendence of all emotional-personal-material attachments, it is love without any expectation of love in return, and compassion for all beings at the soul level.
Mercury and Uranus - Individual/Personal and Universal/Cosmic Intelligence... Mercury as an individual expression/vibration of Uranus operates at the level of beginner's mind with a flame of inquiry, the desire to know... then the "unlearning process" of Uranus makes us universally aware of the limits of knowledge (as nothing more than signposts pointing to the Truth or reality...) and awakens us to INTUITION, the intelligence that is a bridge to the unknown, beyond what the thinking mind could ever comprehend. The transcendence of identification with all personal-intellectual-emotional thought processes.
JDZ
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
The Sun
By Dana Gerhart
You know those little Sun sign scrolls sold in vending machines and grocery stores? Years ago I met the founder of one such company. I'll never forget his enthusiasm. "Where else," he beamed, "can you buy a publication that's entirely about you?" Every line on every page is your story!" We can forgive his overestimating the depth and accuracy of supermarket horoscopes; nonetheless, he put his finger on astrology's fundamental appeal. It promotes a pleasant narcissistic fiction. It makes the grand movement of the solar system all about us. It makes each of us a star.
We're mad for stars. Our obsession with celebrity culture reflects a deep and universal longing: everyone wants to be someone. We want to be more than nature's anonymous display, blooming and fading by the side of the road. Everyone burns (or desires to burn) with a unique and special purpose. We're on a journey-a hero's journey! And happily, Sun sign astrology understands our heroic mission. It democratically upgrades the ancient solar myth: where once astrology was exclusively for kings, now everyone can have a horoscope.
Yet something is amiss in the kingdom. Even as horoscope columns affirm our ambitions and celebrate our radiance, cheering us on our way, there's something awkward in their tone. Sun sign astrologers often mince and prance like servants who must repeatedly assure the king. "Yes, you will have a wonderful day! You'll win your true love, collect plenty of gold, enjoy excellent health, and find victory in battle!" Are such platitudes really the stuff for heroes? For little Suns? Can we imagine the bright center of our solar system quivering as it consults the papers for news of the day's influences?"("What are Mars and Pluto doing to me today?") Maybe this is why some people feel compelled to bolster their spirits with astrological insignias on necklaces and coffee mugs, banding together with other Suns to proclaim "Aries/Taurus/Gemini/etc. rules!"
All this would have had ancient astrologers scratching their heads. For it wasn't until the last hundred years that Sun signs became so popular. Sun sign astrology was invented-by a Sun-ruled Leo, of course. Born in August 1860, William Frederick Allan, who later renamed himself Alan Leo, is considered one of the first modern astrologers. Leo strengthened the notion of character as destiny, steering horoscopes away from predictable fates into psychological profiles laced with spiritual themes. But as a businessman, he was particularly astute. With offices in London, Paris, and New York, and a staff of nearly a dozen people, he produced thousands of horoscopes every year. Like any smart CEO manufacturing a product, he recognized the need to simplify his production line. He trimmed the birth chart to just one factor: the Sun sign. With this master stroke, he created a way to divide people into simple zodiac clusters. Everyone knows their birth date. Without any knowledge of astrology's true complexity, people could easily fit themselves into one of twelve astro-groups. And that's how Sun sign columns were born.
Sun sign astrology is a profitable but ultimately flawed business. Much like fast food, it adds weight without real nourishment, increasing one's craving more than giving true satisfaction. People now wonder endlessly about their identities. Having lost an appreciation for their journey's mystery, they instead keep acquiring more mass. ("On the Enneagram I'm '4,' in Vedic astrology I'm actually a Cancer, in the Chinese system I'm a Rat, and my personal destiny number is a.") Astrologers get calls from people who have jobs, families, mortgages, and driver licenses-yet are hoping the chart can tell them who they are. Our culture is as off-center as the celebrities we like to see crash and burn on our tabloid news.
Losing center is an ironic twist on the Sun's traditional meaning-which is apparent in the glyph itself. The Sun is depicted as a circle with a dot in the middle. A unity with a center as its focal point. There are possibly a trillion galaxies in the universe, each with a hundred billion Suns. Our universe is designed for many centers. Yet we lose this revelation when we worry over much about our personal identities. Our natural radiance dims when we solidify ourselves into conditioned objects, beginning our sentences with "I'm the kind of person who." Pinned by the gravity of taking ourselves too seriously, like a star gone supernova and become a black hole, being at center yields to merely being self-centered.
Alan Leo would be mortified. So to correct our Sun sign narcissism, I propose something even simpler than Leo's master stroke. Instead of reading daily horoscopes, people could start each day by reading their hearts, for the heart offers the most vivid experience of the centering Sun. Try this right now. Simply tune into your beating heart. Stay with the sensation for a few minutes. Feel the life force pulsing through you. Notice how your attention makes the heart grow warmer. After awhile you may feel a pleasant glow. Now shift your thoughts to those activities or people who energize and inspire you. Notice how enthusiasm fires up your radiance. When you come from your heart, you light up. Others are energized by your presence. Just as the Sun is the source of all creative events on Earth, so your creativity can inspire others to express their light-like a flame that is not diminished but builds each time it's passed along. This will be true whatever your Sun sign-Leo, Scorpio, or anything in between.
Returning to Sun Worship
In the center of the Aztec calendar is the Sun god Tonatiuh, "He Who Goes Forth Shining." The Aztecs understood that all good things come from the Sun, but Tonatiuh was no Santa Claus. He had a long and menacing tongue ready to lap up the human blood he required in exchange for his life-granting gifts. Aztec priests routinely sacrificed human hearts to keep the Sun god strong, thus ensuring the survival of their people. Without their blood sacrifice, Aztecs feared the Sun would stop in its tracks and time would stand still. The world would either plunge into perpetual darkness or burn to a cinder.
Of course we know the Sun doesn't revolve around us. Sunrises and sunsets appear as Earth rotates on its axis. Earth circles the Sun and that defines our year. The laws of physics will keep the whole show going, until a few billion years from now when the Sun goes supernova. In the meantime, technology has freed us from worrying about Sun gods. For heat and light we've got electricity, light bulbs, and central heating-that's our immediate experience, that's what our children learn. If it's too cold, turn up the heat. If it's too dark, turn on a light.
So in a way, the Sun has disappeared from our lives, which is exactly what the Aztecs feared. And what's happened? Our sense of time has gone haywire. Life has sped up. Exhausted people with too much to do and not enough time are everywhere. Along with bi-polar disorder, ADD, autism, insomnia and penile dysfunction, two great maladies of our culture are depression and burn-out. Depression is a sign we've lost our fire, our inner Sun no longer rising with the day. Burn-out means there's too much fire, a constant inner Sun frying our circuits. Even though the sky above is hunkey dorey, physically, psychologically, and spiritually, we below are not. Is it because we no longer worship the Sun? Might Tonatiuh be angry? If so, how can we come back to center? Maybe we should propitiate the solar god again.
Blood sacrifice just won't do. Among the Aztecs, blood was the proper currency of exchange between gods and men. Gods gave their blood to create the world and humans were honored to return the favor. Human sacrifice wasn't barbaric; it was a gesture of divine reciprocity. In our culture a more appropriate currency might be light. Light is a metaphor for consciousness. The Sun lights our world and we can return the favor by bringing our consciousness back to the Sun. We can hold the Sun in reverent awareness. Happily, astrology gives us two exquisite means for doing just that.
Get out a copy of your birth chart. More than personality and purpose, the Sun indicates time, and this is embedded in your chart's design. That outer circle with all twelve signs? It represents a year, the time it takes for Earth to make a complete revolution around the Sun, or for the Sun to rise through all twelve constellations. The transiting Sun takes one year to circuit all twelve houses of your chart, metaphorically lighting up each one for about a month. Now look at the cross in the center of your horoscope, indicating the four angles of the chart. These angles were originally devised by the Egyptians, who like the Aztecs, worshipped the Sun. They patterned the angles after the Sun's daily round.
The Ascendant carries the feel and meaning of sunrise; planets transiting this point bring new beginnings. The Midheaven evokes the Sun at noon, high in the sky at maximum glory; the MC indicates where people likewise shine in public strength. The Descendent evokes the setting sun, when the day's work is done; marking the house of partnership, it indicates where we surrender ourselves to another. The IC is the midnight point, when we are deep in sleep and the Sun is also resting from our world. It represents the private foundations of our life-our family, our home, our essential self.
Through houses and angles, birth charts offer a personalized imprint of the Sun's dual signatures, the year and the day. Though rarely discussed as such by astrologers, these two horoscope templates suggest a simple yet elegant way to carry the Sun's centering influence into our lives.
You know those little Sun sign scrolls sold in vending machines and grocery stores? Years ago I met the founder of one such company. I'll never forget his enthusiasm. "Where else," he beamed, "can you buy a publication that's entirely about you?" Every line on every page is your story!" We can forgive his overestimating the depth and accuracy of supermarket horoscopes; nonetheless, he put his finger on astrology's fundamental appeal. It promotes a pleasant narcissistic fiction. It makes the grand movement of the solar system all about us. It makes each of us a star.
We're mad for stars. Our obsession with celebrity culture reflects a deep and universal longing: everyone wants to be someone. We want to be more than nature's anonymous display, blooming and fading by the side of the road. Everyone burns (or desires to burn) with a unique and special purpose. We're on a journey-a hero's journey! And happily, Sun sign astrology understands our heroic mission. It democratically upgrades the ancient solar myth: where once astrology was exclusively for kings, now everyone can have a horoscope.
Yet something is amiss in the kingdom. Even as horoscope columns affirm our ambitions and celebrate our radiance, cheering us on our way, there's something awkward in their tone. Sun sign astrologers often mince and prance like servants who must repeatedly assure the king. "Yes, you will have a wonderful day! You'll win your true love, collect plenty of gold, enjoy excellent health, and find victory in battle!" Are such platitudes really the stuff for heroes? For little Suns? Can we imagine the bright center of our solar system quivering as it consults the papers for news of the day's influences?"("What are Mars and Pluto doing to me today?") Maybe this is why some people feel compelled to bolster their spirits with astrological insignias on necklaces and coffee mugs, banding together with other Suns to proclaim "Aries/Taurus/Gemini/etc. rules!"
All this would have had ancient astrologers scratching their heads. For it wasn't until the last hundred years that Sun signs became so popular. Sun sign astrology was invented-by a Sun-ruled Leo, of course. Born in August 1860, William Frederick Allan, who later renamed himself Alan Leo, is considered one of the first modern astrologers. Leo strengthened the notion of character as destiny, steering horoscopes away from predictable fates into psychological profiles laced with spiritual themes. But as a businessman, he was particularly astute. With offices in London, Paris, and New York, and a staff of nearly a dozen people, he produced thousands of horoscopes every year. Like any smart CEO manufacturing a product, he recognized the need to simplify his production line. He trimmed the birth chart to just one factor: the Sun sign. With this master stroke, he created a way to divide people into simple zodiac clusters. Everyone knows their birth date. Without any knowledge of astrology's true complexity, people could easily fit themselves into one of twelve astro-groups. And that's how Sun sign columns were born.
Sun sign astrology is a profitable but ultimately flawed business. Much like fast food, it adds weight without real nourishment, increasing one's craving more than giving true satisfaction. People now wonder endlessly about their identities. Having lost an appreciation for their journey's mystery, they instead keep acquiring more mass. ("On the Enneagram I'm '4,' in Vedic astrology I'm actually a Cancer, in the Chinese system I'm a Rat, and my personal destiny number is a.") Astrologers get calls from people who have jobs, families, mortgages, and driver licenses-yet are hoping the chart can tell them who they are. Our culture is as off-center as the celebrities we like to see crash and burn on our tabloid news.
Losing center is an ironic twist on the Sun's traditional meaning-which is apparent in the glyph itself. The Sun is depicted as a circle with a dot in the middle. A unity with a center as its focal point. There are possibly a trillion galaxies in the universe, each with a hundred billion Suns. Our universe is designed for many centers. Yet we lose this revelation when we worry over much about our personal identities. Our natural radiance dims when we solidify ourselves into conditioned objects, beginning our sentences with "I'm the kind of person who." Pinned by the gravity of taking ourselves too seriously, like a star gone supernova and become a black hole, being at center yields to merely being self-centered.
Alan Leo would be mortified. So to correct our Sun sign narcissism, I propose something even simpler than Leo's master stroke. Instead of reading daily horoscopes, people could start each day by reading their hearts, for the heart offers the most vivid experience of the centering Sun. Try this right now. Simply tune into your beating heart. Stay with the sensation for a few minutes. Feel the life force pulsing through you. Notice how your attention makes the heart grow warmer. After awhile you may feel a pleasant glow. Now shift your thoughts to those activities or people who energize and inspire you. Notice how enthusiasm fires up your radiance. When you come from your heart, you light up. Others are energized by your presence. Just as the Sun is the source of all creative events on Earth, so your creativity can inspire others to express their light-like a flame that is not diminished but builds each time it's passed along. This will be true whatever your Sun sign-Leo, Scorpio, or anything in between.
Returning to Sun Worship
In the center of the Aztec calendar is the Sun god Tonatiuh, "He Who Goes Forth Shining." The Aztecs understood that all good things come from the Sun, but Tonatiuh was no Santa Claus. He had a long and menacing tongue ready to lap up the human blood he required in exchange for his life-granting gifts. Aztec priests routinely sacrificed human hearts to keep the Sun god strong, thus ensuring the survival of their people. Without their blood sacrifice, Aztecs feared the Sun would stop in its tracks and time would stand still. The world would either plunge into perpetual darkness or burn to a cinder.
Of course we know the Sun doesn't revolve around us. Sunrises and sunsets appear as Earth rotates on its axis. Earth circles the Sun and that defines our year. The laws of physics will keep the whole show going, until a few billion years from now when the Sun goes supernova. In the meantime, technology has freed us from worrying about Sun gods. For heat and light we've got electricity, light bulbs, and central heating-that's our immediate experience, that's what our children learn. If it's too cold, turn up the heat. If it's too dark, turn on a light.
So in a way, the Sun has disappeared from our lives, which is exactly what the Aztecs feared. And what's happened? Our sense of time has gone haywire. Life has sped up. Exhausted people with too much to do and not enough time are everywhere. Along with bi-polar disorder, ADD, autism, insomnia and penile dysfunction, two great maladies of our culture are depression and burn-out. Depression is a sign we've lost our fire, our inner Sun no longer rising with the day. Burn-out means there's too much fire, a constant inner Sun frying our circuits. Even though the sky above is hunkey dorey, physically, psychologically, and spiritually, we below are not. Is it because we no longer worship the Sun? Might Tonatiuh be angry? If so, how can we come back to center? Maybe we should propitiate the solar god again.
Blood sacrifice just won't do. Among the Aztecs, blood was the proper currency of exchange between gods and men. Gods gave their blood to create the world and humans were honored to return the favor. Human sacrifice wasn't barbaric; it was a gesture of divine reciprocity. In our culture a more appropriate currency might be light. Light is a metaphor for consciousness. The Sun lights our world and we can return the favor by bringing our consciousness back to the Sun. We can hold the Sun in reverent awareness. Happily, astrology gives us two exquisite means for doing just that.
Get out a copy of your birth chart. More than personality and purpose, the Sun indicates time, and this is embedded in your chart's design. That outer circle with all twelve signs? It represents a year, the time it takes for Earth to make a complete revolution around the Sun, or for the Sun to rise through all twelve constellations. The transiting Sun takes one year to circuit all twelve houses of your chart, metaphorically lighting up each one for about a month. Now look at the cross in the center of your horoscope, indicating the four angles of the chart. These angles were originally devised by the Egyptians, who like the Aztecs, worshipped the Sun. They patterned the angles after the Sun's daily round.
The Ascendant carries the feel and meaning of sunrise; planets transiting this point bring new beginnings. The Midheaven evokes the Sun at noon, high in the sky at maximum glory; the MC indicates where people likewise shine in public strength. The Descendent evokes the setting sun, when the day's work is done; marking the house of partnership, it indicates where we surrender ourselves to another. The IC is the midnight point, when we are deep in sleep and the Sun is also resting from our world. It represents the private foundations of our life-our family, our home, our essential self.
Through houses and angles, birth charts offer a personalized imprint of the Sun's dual signatures, the year and the day. Though rarely discussed as such by astrologers, these two horoscope templates suggest a simple yet elegant way to carry the Sun's centering influence into our lives.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturn conjunction Uranus: Fundamental changes
Saturn conjunction Uranus: Fundamental changes
Beginning of October 2009 until beginning of July 2010: This is an extremely powerful influence, for it represents powerful internal forces for change colliding with powerful resistance from the external world. You are trying to escape the routine, dull and ordinary aspects of your life. You try to find new things that will make your life more exciting and stimulating. But with every effort of this kind, circumstances, duties and obligations seem to hold you back and keep you stuck in an oppressive situation.
You may get to a point where the pressure is unbearable, and then you will make a sudden break for freedom. You may suddenly leave a relationship, an oppressive job or your place of residence, without warning anyone.
On the other hand, it may be possible to create a balance that enables you to sustain a great deal of tension over a long period of time and accomplish a great many changes in a highly structured way. Tasks of considerable difficulty are often accomplished under this influence, and people make Herculean efforts that would otherwise be impossible for them. Serious study and long-range projects requiring great concentration and effort can be undertaken.
Even though this may seem more productive, it really depends upon your situation. Very often a sudden break with what feels like an oppressive situation will clear the air and allow you to make a new and better beginning. On the other hand, it can cost you more than you are willing to pay. But the patient, hard-working manifestation of this energy may create severe mental and physical tensions, even to the point of physical illness. You have to decide what you can handle realistically and determine for yourself the proper course of action. At this time in your life you must make changes at the most fundamental levels. If you do not, in approximately fourteen years the consequences of not making these changes will become very obvious, and you will be confronted with the same issues again under more difficult circumstances.
Beginning of October 2009 until beginning of July 2010: This is an extremely powerful influence, for it represents powerful internal forces for change colliding with powerful resistance from the external world. You are trying to escape the routine, dull and ordinary aspects of your life. You try to find new things that will make your life more exciting and stimulating. But with every effort of this kind, circumstances, duties and obligations seem to hold you back and keep you stuck in an oppressive situation.
You may get to a point where the pressure is unbearable, and then you will make a sudden break for freedom. You may suddenly leave a relationship, an oppressive job or your place of residence, without warning anyone.
On the other hand, it may be possible to create a balance that enables you to sustain a great deal of tension over a long period of time and accomplish a great many changes in a highly structured way. Tasks of considerable difficulty are often accomplished under this influence, and people make Herculean efforts that would otherwise be impossible for them. Serious study and long-range projects requiring great concentration and effort can be undertaken.
Even though this may seem more productive, it really depends upon your situation. Very often a sudden break with what feels like an oppressive situation will clear the air and allow you to make a new and better beginning. On the other hand, it can cost you more than you are willing to pay. But the patient, hard-working manifestation of this energy may create severe mental and physical tensions, even to the point of physical illness. You have to decide what you can handle realistically and determine for yourself the proper course of action. At this time in your life you must make changes at the most fundamental levels. If you do not, in approximately fourteen years the consequences of not making these changes will become very obvious, and you will be confronted with the same issues again under more difficult circumstances.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Insights - Astrological-Personal-Universal
Astrological references to Ken Wilbur synthetic reference of Causal, Astral and Physical Bodies... those *embodying* the five sheaths of maya or illusion (original ignorance).
Causal Body & Bliss Sheath - "ALL of US" - The Sun (universal energy, heat & light)
Astral Body & Intellectual/Mental-Emotional/Energy Sheaths - "US" or "YOU and I" - The Moon (human intelligence, thought/feeling and vital energies, subjectively and personally experienced via interpersonal relations)
Physical Body & Physical Food Sheath - "I ME & MINE" - The Ascendant (and most especially Houses 1-4). All that incarnates in form and is nourished by food, by the Earth itself, which most distinctively of all gives the masked appearance of being separate (my self and my reality, Ascendant/Horizon and Mid-Heaven/Meridian respectively), My World and World-View as coming from a unique most individual (separate) perspective.
While the Moon and Astral Body represent a "living past" which IS the present (here and now) experience, and ever changing reality, The Ascendant and Sun are together that NOW reality, of clarity, consciousness, choice and freewill, forever marching toward a projected living future *in the present*.
The Moon, as Earth's satellite (its subjective/soul existence) magnetizes and directly connects to the opposite polarities (the shadow side) of Sun and Ascendant (and Mid-Heaven)... meaning the opposite angles, the Descendant and Nadir, are primary indicators of the past shadow (or trail) that the Ascending Sign or Rising Sun leaves behind when continuing along its immediate worldly path of active manifestation, which is then projected upon others in interpersonal relationship(s).
Likewise the sign 180 degrees (opposite) the Sun is a key indicator of one's Solar past from the unique perspective of the Sun Sign. Where the Sun develops overtime along its soul path and purpose the Moon takes on and is modified by the past or shadow/polarity of the Sun Sign. While the Solar perspective remains forever future-oriented, a vital presence connected to a source, to the eternal (unchanging) present moment.... It leaves a shadow of past experience, of personal karmic baggage, behind which is at the root of self-undoing and gives purpose via contrast to the Sun and its Higher Purpose.
To be continued...
JDZ
Causal Body & Bliss Sheath - "ALL of US" - The Sun (universal energy, heat & light)
Astral Body & Intellectual/Mental-Emotional/Energy Sheaths - "US" or "YOU and I" - The Moon (human intelligence, thought/feeling and vital energies, subjectively and personally experienced via interpersonal relations)
Physical Body & Physical Food Sheath - "I ME & MINE" - The Ascendant (and most especially Houses 1-4). All that incarnates in form and is nourished by food, by the Earth itself, which most distinctively of all gives the masked appearance of being separate (my self and my reality, Ascendant/Horizon and Mid-Heaven/Meridian respectively), My World and World-View as coming from a unique most individual (separate) perspective.
While the Moon and Astral Body represent a "living past" which IS the present (here and now) experience, and ever changing reality, The Ascendant and Sun are together that NOW reality, of clarity, consciousness, choice and freewill, forever marching toward a projected living future *in the present*.
The Moon, as Earth's satellite (its subjective/soul existence) magnetizes and directly connects to the opposite polarities (the shadow side) of Sun and Ascendant (and Mid-Heaven)... meaning the opposite angles, the Descendant and Nadir, are primary indicators of the past shadow (or trail) that the Ascending Sign or Rising Sun leaves behind when continuing along its immediate worldly path of active manifestation, which is then projected upon others in interpersonal relationship(s).
Likewise the sign 180 degrees (opposite) the Sun is a key indicator of one's Solar past from the unique perspective of the Sun Sign. Where the Sun develops overtime along its soul path and purpose the Moon takes on and is modified by the past or shadow/polarity of the Sun Sign. While the Solar perspective remains forever future-oriented, a vital presence connected to a source, to the eternal (unchanging) present moment.... It leaves a shadow of past experience, of personal karmic baggage, behind which is at the root of self-undoing and gives purpose via contrast to the Sun and its Higher Purpose.
To be continued...
JDZ
Saturday, September 26, 2009
The Moon
by Dana Gerhardt
I've always been drawn to the Moon. As a beginning astrologer, I found Moon signs, aspects, and house positions far more compelling than those for any other planet. The Moon tells the juiciest stories. Our Moon remembers when we cried out in our diapers, wanting nurture, the warmth of touch, a breast or bottle of milk. It remembers what happened next, whether our needs were met and we learned our world was generous and cheerful or stingy and impatient. Aspects to the Moon describe our interpretation of mother's mothering, whether we experienced her as comforting and supportive or smothering and resentful.
The Moon was also there when we first stamped our feet and tossed our head in that special way we have. Surprised parents looked and asked if we thought we were the Queen of Sheba. Well yes, weren't we the Queen of Sheba? For the Moon's memory stretches even further back, into other lifetimes, when we picked up certain gestures, habits and expectations no one else in our family seems to have. The Moon represents a deep imprinting, physical and emotional, harboring mysteries a team of psychologists could not itemize or explain. Its reactions are instinctive and spontaneous. Its boundaries are porous, its core so sensitive, even in our elder years it can receive a cruel remark with the unprotected vulnerability of a child. The Moon remembers everything and wants only our happiness. It's the first to raise a fuss if our needs aren't getting met.
When I began talking with people about their charts, I naturally went for the Moon, asking about their childhoods, prying into old angers and recent wounds, collecting gestures, tones of voice, and other psychological clues. "Of course," my teacher said one day, "in a reading you don't immediately start talking about someone's Moon." The pained expressions of a few first clients came back to me and made new sense. Oh! The Moon is not an astrologer's dart board.
As my practice grew, I discovered not all astrologers had learned this lesson. Amy was nervous about her first session with me. Her last reading was with a prominent astrologer who'd said that with Uranus conjunct Amy's Moon, her mother hadn't wanted her, and she was destined to repeat this rejection until she dealt with her past. Amy, whose boyfriend had just broken up with her, left that reading shaken and in tears. Amy's mother may have been stressed and less than comforting when Amy was born. But over the long stretch of their relationship, the two were close companions, supporting each other's independence, and sharing many sweet and quirky Uranian traits.
Most astrology books say that anyone with a Moon-Pluto aspect must have had a horrific mother. And yet a number of my Moon-Pluto clients have complained, "Every astrologer I've seen wants to talk about my terrible mother. But frankly, my mother wasn't that bad. I love her and I don't feel traumatized." What I've learned from these and other clients is that the Moon's expression is complex. Reduce it to a simple psychological formula at your peril. It is true that over time, a few of these Moon-Pluto clients would stumble into a tear-provoking memory of helplessness under their mother's power. And while the memory released an integral piece of their own psychology, reflecting a buried need to defend against intimacy, it did not negate the rich and often supportive connections they experienced with their mom. Sometimes these lunar breakthroughs went the other way, as with my Scorpio Moon client who always felt her mother resented her, until she discovered how tenaciously her mother fought to save her life during an early childhood illness.
As a novice I thought I knew everything by knowing someone's Moon. But over time my understanding of this placement has become more like the Moon herself: It waxes and wanes. Sometimes the Moon is a potent, luminous presence. Other times, she's a cold glyph staring back from the chart with no depth or poetry. With some clients, the Moon can dominate an entire session. With others, or with the same client at another time, the Moon won't even appear. For years I've had a reputation as a Moon expert, but periodically I have to keep asking: What do I really know when I see someone's Moon? What do I know when I see my own?
The Living Moon
Vedic astrology invites us to think of the planets and luminaries as sacred living entities--as goddesses and gods. Even though I hang out with a circle of women who like to call the Moon a "goddess," I don't come to this language easily. I've never believed the orbs above hold deities like smiling marshmallow centers. I can believe in powers greater than myself. And while they may not sit at vast control boards within the planets, orchestrating all fates below, perhaps they do speak through the planets. What orbits above or appears on charts below may be like the holy statues in shrines at Hindu temples-visible messengers of a living deity. I am most intrigued by this adjective "living." It suggests to me that when I'm puzzling about the Moon, instead of opening an astrology book or consulting the night's Moon phase, I can also look for the Moon in my very own life, in my body, emotions, and moods.
I learned volumes about the Moon when I got pregnant. Surely it was the Moon who overtook my body, filling it out like a ripe fruit, nurturing the new and fluttering heartbeat inside. I knew nothing about having a baby! I read books, I watched my diet, but mostly I stood aside and watched this mystery unfold through some agency greater than myself. Once my son was born, surely it was the Moon who taught me the exquisite relief of having someone else to worry about. Overnight, self-centeredness, the constant burden of pushing forward "important" projects and shuttling from one entertainment to the next, dissolved. From the Moon, I learned the incomparable pleasure of reflecting another being's light.
But there came a time when I didn't want to be a mother anymore. I got tired of pleading with Branden to brush his teeth, wipe his nose with Kleenex, and stop tormenting the dog. I didn't want to watch "Lamb Chop" in the morning and "Barney" at night, or play with tow trucks and fire engines on the living room floor. I cringed at the sound of his sweet three-year-old voice, "Mom, will you play with me now?" I wanted to be attentive to his needs, validate his feelings, set boundaries, open possibilities, do everything the psychology books said I should, but periodically I ran dry. I lost patience and became the wicked witch.
I can see my struggle depicted in my son's birth chart. He has a Moon/Jupiter conjunction, opposite Venus, squared by Mars. I have guilty memories of enacting that Mars square. One morning in particular I had waged a long battle trying to get Branden to brush his teeth, wash his face, sit on the potty, so I could get him dressed and packed for day care. He inched so slowly down the stairs. "Let's go honey, Mommy's late for work." And then he just stood there, surveying the day. More nagging from me and a few paces further, he stopped at the flower bed and asked me (as he often did) if he could pick flowers for his day care mommy. I said we were too late today; he stamped his feet and let out a cry shrill as an ambulance siren, and I lost it. Screaming unkind words, I stalked back, grabbed a fistful of flowers and threw them at his feet.
I'm often asked by anxious moms what squares or oppositions to their child's Moon mean. "Don't worry," I want to say, "You'll find out. Watch what you do when you're hungry, hurried, angry, lonely or tired." A Moon/Jupiter/Venus/Mars t-square? There I was, Branden's impatient, adventurous, indulgent and angry mom, in a scene far worse than any from my own childhood that I've complained to a therapist about.
Enter my Moon. It's in the 12th house, square Saturn. A guilty Moon. I'm supposed to take care of others' needs, especially my son's. Or, in the more psychologically correct version: I'm supposed to take care of my needs first so that I'm always strong enough to take care of others' needs, especially my son's. But in the 12th house, I trance out of touch with my feelings. Like abandoned rabid dogs, they lunge, snarling and biting at anyone near. This begins my Moon/Saturn mantra: "I am not good enough, I am not good enough." A 12th house Moon is a caretaking Moon; it is a hungry, victim Moon. It colludes with my 11th house Cancer South Node and says: Serve others before you serve yourself, then break down like a child.
Enter Branden's lunar nodes. His 1st house North Node points towards developing self reliance and independence, while his 7th house South Node clings, at times draining vital energy from the others he can't be without. Rebalancing self and other is his soul's mission. He's got a lifetime to work on it. So of course I knew it was not his most important project as a toddler. But many times I ventured, "Branden, can you play with your stuffed bears tonight instead?" "They are not people," his 7th house South Node would cry.
Round and round I went, until one morning, the image of the Moon, its reflective light, parceled in phases, from dark to full to dark again came as a message. The Moon receives and holds the light of the Sun, as a mother receives and contains the world of the child. But the Moon goes through phases and so do moms: We can't receive all the time! What the psychologists omit, or pay thin lip service to, the Moon remembers, the Moon enacts. When the Moon is fully illuminated, it demonstrates the height of our reflective powers-our capacity to listen and intuit another's moods and needs. Nights when the Moon is dark teach the necessity of pulling back and shutting down. The inner Moon must likewise make her parched return to the well, shaking off the light of her life's many Suns. Neglect these cycles, however, and the inner Moon will take her revenge.
That's how it is with living gods. They fight, they play, they cheat, they lie, they love, they hate; in short, they live. A key difference between polytheism, the "many living gods" concept, and our more familiar western monotheism, which gives us one supreme Father, is that when there are many gods, the deities get to have both good and bad qualities. Check out the myths of any indigenous people and you'll find their gods have and do it all. But when there's just one God, he's not allowed any darkness or evil. What's bad is cast out, like that devil Lucifer, fallen from the bosom of our one Christian God. As above so below: When we don't allow our gods any fallibility, we likewise won't admit it in ourselves.
This expectation of perfection runs deeps, and it profoundly shapes our thinking. It gives us internal pictures of perfect Moon mothers, "on" all the time. With each new child-developmental theory, a mother acquires new expectations of perfection, now nurturing this, refraining from that, as though there were nothing else in her life to worry about. Perhaps this is the real source of mother rage, and why our fairy tales are filled with so many wicked stepmothers and so few smiling real ones. Of course I believed that mom was responsible for all my problems until I became a mother. Now I wonder: Where is the psychological theory that instructs mothers to listen to their inner Moons? I once heard Anne Wilson Schaef describe an aboriginal tribe that approached its mothering in a more polytheistic spirit. Each child had many mothers; all the women in the tribe shared the nurturing role. That meant any mother was free, in fact encouraged, to go on a "walkabout" when the spirits spoke and told her to withdraw and be alone.
We're a solar people. The notion that we can or should be present all the time is a particularly solar one, for the Sun is always full and shining. We bring this expectation to work and into all our relationships, especially our loves. Here too our disavowed Moons may seek revenge. When I'm in relationship with another, my emotional nature is reflective, reactive, and changing. Yet it can't be said too often: One cannot receive all the time. Even if I secretly know this about me, I will consistently forget it about you. And forgetting this means falling into the perfect mother archetype. If I'm angry because my partner isn't meeting my needs, I'm demanding my perfect mother, and my inner Moon has transformed me into a dependent child. This is one of the lessons of John Gray's milestone book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Intimate relationships are subject to emotional cycles, Gray teaches. Men retreat emotionally to renew themselves, women rise and fall in a cycle of emotional highs and lows. Acknowledging this is how we can receive and nurture ourselves-and steer clear of the perfect mother trap. The only thing Gray got wrong is that these cycles aren't rhythms of Venus or Mars. It's what happens when two Moons are involved.
In a solar return, horary, or event chart, we read the Moon's house as an area of changeability. But how do we honor this changeability in a natal chart? What really do I know when I see your Moon? What do I know when I see my own? I should know that you and I are fluid and changeable, reflecting, reacting, and withdrawing, cycling from dark to full to dark again. This is deeply meaningful information, a profound clue to the swing and dance of life. It's why Lord Siva, the Hindu god of destruction and creation, honors the Moon by wearing the lunar crescent on his crown. The Moon teaches that we exist in relationship-to ourselves as well as others-by gaining consciousness and losing it, by cycling in and out of light. This is true for men and women. Everyone has a Moon! But when I was the mother of a toddler, I searched in vain for the psychological theory that would help me teach this cycle of intimacy to my son, how to pull away and return, so he could learn this was natural and desirable, so that twenty years hence, he wouldn't lose the thread to his own emotions and shut down, or periodically hate the woman he loves, because he was first so disappointed in his mom.
When Moon Meets Moon
Astrologers presume that when two people have compatible Moons, or flowing aspects between one's Moon and another's planets, this will be a comfortable relationship, with plenty of shared sympathies and intuitive understanding. The Moon describes what we want from family life and the way we like to be at home. Venus and Mars hold the passion in a relationship. But for day-to-day compatibility-whether we like to hang up our clothes or leave them in scattered piles on the floor-this is the province of the Moon. When Moons are compatible, people say things like "I've always felt so at home with Bob" or "The minute I met Janine, it's like we'd known each other forever."
If only the relationship stayed that way! The longer we're together, the more time we have to discover each Moon's secret hallways and trapdoors, so that what once was familiar and attractive can become irritating and strange. I've had three relationships with men whose charts had a common lunar signature. One had a Virgo Moon, the others 6th house Moons. I have a Virgo Ascendant; the attraction is understandable. A man will often seek a woman to embody the traits of his inner Moon. My men initially loved the way I did Virgo, smart and organized, health-conscious, analytical, and self-possessed. What a miracle it was to realize we agreed on everything. We were so alike! But in each relationship, it wasn't long before I found myself being accused of bad behavior. They said I was judgmental, picky, and unsupportive, all shadow Virgo traits. In my twenties, with my first husband, this was probably a fair complaint. I was only my Ascendant then. During the ten years of my next relationship, with the help of a mountain of books and a couple of therapists, I worked earnestly to whittle this mask away. I learned that men didn't like to be criticized (Oh!). I developed new tolerance and patience. I dialed up the fun of my Leo Moon and reveled in the adventurousness of my Sagittarius Sun. When I entered the next relationship I was thrilled to finally be a different woman. But four months into our love affair, on one dark and very long night, I heard those familiar words: "I think you're judgmental, critical and negating." I was floored.
A friend of mine has a saying: "If ten men say you're drunk, lay down." Perhaps, despite the prior ten years of inner and outer work, I was still nothing more than my critical Virgo Ascendant. But strangely, each time this accusation was hurled, I felt that my critical, judgmental lover was negating me! So who was doing the Virgo really? And why did I keep attracting men with this sensitivity? Was it my own 12th house Moon, opposite the 6th, inviting me to play a familiar role as victim, reciting its treasured "Why do they all crucify me" script? When Moon meets Moon, it's like walking in a house of mirrors!
What really happens when one Moon shines into the dark emotional waters of another? When I look at you, do I see your Moon or mine? When one reflection meets another, we get an optical illusion called "projection." What I see in you may actually be something I don't see in myself. This ambiguity is threaded into our astrological symbolism. A man's Moon, for example, is said to describe his emotions, as well as his mother and his wife. Not being a man, I'm ill-equipped to fully sort this out, but even a woman's Moon has a dual role, describing both her feelings and her mother. Most days I feel as unlike my mother as an orange to a tomato, so how can my Moon be both of us? And why is my Moon different from my sister's, when the same woman was our mother?
I have a Leo Moon and I tend to describe my mom in Leo terms. I see her as an artist, an actress, a narcissist, a child. With my Moon in the 12th house of spirits, I acknowledge my mother as the one who taught me about fairies and magic and all things spiritual-as well as victim scripts and blurred emotional boundaries. My sister has a Capricorn Moon. She describes my mother in Capricorn terms, as a dictator and career woman, ambitious, withholding, and cold. My sister's Moon is in the 3rd house of communication. She considers my mother overly talkative, full of ideas and promises, but ultimately unstable. Each of out charts reflects a different aspect of my mother's chart. My 12th house Moon reflects my mother's Moon sign, Pisces. My sister's Capricorn Moon reflects my mother's Capricorn Ascendant.
New age philosophers like to say we choose our parents. Maybe there was a trip to a giant shopping mall in the upper worlds (about which we might wonder, "What were we thinking?!"). A more pragmatic explanation may be point of view. When we look at our parents, we select the details that corroborate our expectations; the rest we minimize. So we "choose" our parents through our planetary filters; in essence, we create them by what we choose to believe about them. My mother suffered from post-partum depression when my sister was born, which is consistent with the Capricorn tone of my sister's Moon. But my mother complains that as a baby, my sister was cold and distant, never smiled at her, and never seemed to like her since the day she was born. Each claims only to have reacted to the other's first move. I, on the other hand, with my more expressive Leo Moon, was a warmer, more loving child, or so my mother claims. And unlike my sister, I can remember my mother often being encouraging and creative. Was her Moon reflected in my waters, or mine in hers?
The Moon is memory, container of our past. But it is also porous, reactive and changeable. After my last Virgo Moon man, I entered a relationship with a 10th house Aquarius Moon (opposite my Leo). What a relief! No longer was I "judgmental" and "picky." After the gauzy veil of romance wore thin, we were trading insults like "You're such a narcissist" and "You're always working. You never have time for me." It took a few years for our respective Moons to throw tantrums and negotiate the territory, but now each is quite at home with the other, and not at all the same Moon as was with our prior partners.
If the Moon describes our habitual and changing emotional life, plus the traits of our mothers and partners, there can be no astrology text capable of summing it all. That is why, when practicing astrology, before saying much about someone's Moon, you should wait for the Moon to rise in the reading of its own accord. In fact, you should make your deepest study of your own Moon, so you can keep its neediness and projections out of the way. Then your Moon can do what it does best: listen, reflect, intuit and nourish the radiant Sun in front of you.
I've always been drawn to the Moon. As a beginning astrologer, I found Moon signs, aspects, and house positions far more compelling than those for any other planet. The Moon tells the juiciest stories. Our Moon remembers when we cried out in our diapers, wanting nurture, the warmth of touch, a breast or bottle of milk. It remembers what happened next, whether our needs were met and we learned our world was generous and cheerful or stingy and impatient. Aspects to the Moon describe our interpretation of mother's mothering, whether we experienced her as comforting and supportive or smothering and resentful.
The Moon was also there when we first stamped our feet and tossed our head in that special way we have. Surprised parents looked and asked if we thought we were the Queen of Sheba. Well yes, weren't we the Queen of Sheba? For the Moon's memory stretches even further back, into other lifetimes, when we picked up certain gestures, habits and expectations no one else in our family seems to have. The Moon represents a deep imprinting, physical and emotional, harboring mysteries a team of psychologists could not itemize or explain. Its reactions are instinctive and spontaneous. Its boundaries are porous, its core so sensitive, even in our elder years it can receive a cruel remark with the unprotected vulnerability of a child. The Moon remembers everything and wants only our happiness. It's the first to raise a fuss if our needs aren't getting met.
When I began talking with people about their charts, I naturally went for the Moon, asking about their childhoods, prying into old angers and recent wounds, collecting gestures, tones of voice, and other psychological clues. "Of course," my teacher said one day, "in a reading you don't immediately start talking about someone's Moon." The pained expressions of a few first clients came back to me and made new sense. Oh! The Moon is not an astrologer's dart board.
As my practice grew, I discovered not all astrologers had learned this lesson. Amy was nervous about her first session with me. Her last reading was with a prominent astrologer who'd said that with Uranus conjunct Amy's Moon, her mother hadn't wanted her, and she was destined to repeat this rejection until she dealt with her past. Amy, whose boyfriend had just broken up with her, left that reading shaken and in tears. Amy's mother may have been stressed and less than comforting when Amy was born. But over the long stretch of their relationship, the two were close companions, supporting each other's independence, and sharing many sweet and quirky Uranian traits.
Most astrology books say that anyone with a Moon-Pluto aspect must have had a horrific mother. And yet a number of my Moon-Pluto clients have complained, "Every astrologer I've seen wants to talk about my terrible mother. But frankly, my mother wasn't that bad. I love her and I don't feel traumatized." What I've learned from these and other clients is that the Moon's expression is complex. Reduce it to a simple psychological formula at your peril. It is true that over time, a few of these Moon-Pluto clients would stumble into a tear-provoking memory of helplessness under their mother's power. And while the memory released an integral piece of their own psychology, reflecting a buried need to defend against intimacy, it did not negate the rich and often supportive connections they experienced with their mom. Sometimes these lunar breakthroughs went the other way, as with my Scorpio Moon client who always felt her mother resented her, until she discovered how tenaciously her mother fought to save her life during an early childhood illness.
As a novice I thought I knew everything by knowing someone's Moon. But over time my understanding of this placement has become more like the Moon herself: It waxes and wanes. Sometimes the Moon is a potent, luminous presence. Other times, she's a cold glyph staring back from the chart with no depth or poetry. With some clients, the Moon can dominate an entire session. With others, or with the same client at another time, the Moon won't even appear. For years I've had a reputation as a Moon expert, but periodically I have to keep asking: What do I really know when I see someone's Moon? What do I know when I see my own?
The Living Moon
Vedic astrology invites us to think of the planets and luminaries as sacred living entities--as goddesses and gods. Even though I hang out with a circle of women who like to call the Moon a "goddess," I don't come to this language easily. I've never believed the orbs above hold deities like smiling marshmallow centers. I can believe in powers greater than myself. And while they may not sit at vast control boards within the planets, orchestrating all fates below, perhaps they do speak through the planets. What orbits above or appears on charts below may be like the holy statues in shrines at Hindu temples-visible messengers of a living deity. I am most intrigued by this adjective "living." It suggests to me that when I'm puzzling about the Moon, instead of opening an astrology book or consulting the night's Moon phase, I can also look for the Moon in my very own life, in my body, emotions, and moods.
I learned volumes about the Moon when I got pregnant. Surely it was the Moon who overtook my body, filling it out like a ripe fruit, nurturing the new and fluttering heartbeat inside. I knew nothing about having a baby! I read books, I watched my diet, but mostly I stood aside and watched this mystery unfold through some agency greater than myself. Once my son was born, surely it was the Moon who taught me the exquisite relief of having someone else to worry about. Overnight, self-centeredness, the constant burden of pushing forward "important" projects and shuttling from one entertainment to the next, dissolved. From the Moon, I learned the incomparable pleasure of reflecting another being's light.
But there came a time when I didn't want to be a mother anymore. I got tired of pleading with Branden to brush his teeth, wipe his nose with Kleenex, and stop tormenting the dog. I didn't want to watch "Lamb Chop" in the morning and "Barney" at night, or play with tow trucks and fire engines on the living room floor. I cringed at the sound of his sweet three-year-old voice, "Mom, will you play with me now?" I wanted to be attentive to his needs, validate his feelings, set boundaries, open possibilities, do everything the psychology books said I should, but periodically I ran dry. I lost patience and became the wicked witch.
I can see my struggle depicted in my son's birth chart. He has a Moon/Jupiter conjunction, opposite Venus, squared by Mars. I have guilty memories of enacting that Mars square. One morning in particular I had waged a long battle trying to get Branden to brush his teeth, wash his face, sit on the potty, so I could get him dressed and packed for day care. He inched so slowly down the stairs. "Let's go honey, Mommy's late for work." And then he just stood there, surveying the day. More nagging from me and a few paces further, he stopped at the flower bed and asked me (as he often did) if he could pick flowers for his day care mommy. I said we were too late today; he stamped his feet and let out a cry shrill as an ambulance siren, and I lost it. Screaming unkind words, I stalked back, grabbed a fistful of flowers and threw them at his feet.
I'm often asked by anxious moms what squares or oppositions to their child's Moon mean. "Don't worry," I want to say, "You'll find out. Watch what you do when you're hungry, hurried, angry, lonely or tired." A Moon/Jupiter/Venus/Mars t-square? There I was, Branden's impatient, adventurous, indulgent and angry mom, in a scene far worse than any from my own childhood that I've complained to a therapist about.
Enter my Moon. It's in the 12th house, square Saturn. A guilty Moon. I'm supposed to take care of others' needs, especially my son's. Or, in the more psychologically correct version: I'm supposed to take care of my needs first so that I'm always strong enough to take care of others' needs, especially my son's. But in the 12th house, I trance out of touch with my feelings. Like abandoned rabid dogs, they lunge, snarling and biting at anyone near. This begins my Moon/Saturn mantra: "I am not good enough, I am not good enough." A 12th house Moon is a caretaking Moon; it is a hungry, victim Moon. It colludes with my 11th house Cancer South Node and says: Serve others before you serve yourself, then break down like a child.
Enter Branden's lunar nodes. His 1st house North Node points towards developing self reliance and independence, while his 7th house South Node clings, at times draining vital energy from the others he can't be without. Rebalancing self and other is his soul's mission. He's got a lifetime to work on it. So of course I knew it was not his most important project as a toddler. But many times I ventured, "Branden, can you play with your stuffed bears tonight instead?" "They are not people," his 7th house South Node would cry.
Round and round I went, until one morning, the image of the Moon, its reflective light, parceled in phases, from dark to full to dark again came as a message. The Moon receives and holds the light of the Sun, as a mother receives and contains the world of the child. But the Moon goes through phases and so do moms: We can't receive all the time! What the psychologists omit, or pay thin lip service to, the Moon remembers, the Moon enacts. When the Moon is fully illuminated, it demonstrates the height of our reflective powers-our capacity to listen and intuit another's moods and needs. Nights when the Moon is dark teach the necessity of pulling back and shutting down. The inner Moon must likewise make her parched return to the well, shaking off the light of her life's many Suns. Neglect these cycles, however, and the inner Moon will take her revenge.
That's how it is with living gods. They fight, they play, they cheat, they lie, they love, they hate; in short, they live. A key difference between polytheism, the "many living gods" concept, and our more familiar western monotheism, which gives us one supreme Father, is that when there are many gods, the deities get to have both good and bad qualities. Check out the myths of any indigenous people and you'll find their gods have and do it all. But when there's just one God, he's not allowed any darkness or evil. What's bad is cast out, like that devil Lucifer, fallen from the bosom of our one Christian God. As above so below: When we don't allow our gods any fallibility, we likewise won't admit it in ourselves.
This expectation of perfection runs deeps, and it profoundly shapes our thinking. It gives us internal pictures of perfect Moon mothers, "on" all the time. With each new child-developmental theory, a mother acquires new expectations of perfection, now nurturing this, refraining from that, as though there were nothing else in her life to worry about. Perhaps this is the real source of mother rage, and why our fairy tales are filled with so many wicked stepmothers and so few smiling real ones. Of course I believed that mom was responsible for all my problems until I became a mother. Now I wonder: Where is the psychological theory that instructs mothers to listen to their inner Moons? I once heard Anne Wilson Schaef describe an aboriginal tribe that approached its mothering in a more polytheistic spirit. Each child had many mothers; all the women in the tribe shared the nurturing role. That meant any mother was free, in fact encouraged, to go on a "walkabout" when the spirits spoke and told her to withdraw and be alone.
We're a solar people. The notion that we can or should be present all the time is a particularly solar one, for the Sun is always full and shining. We bring this expectation to work and into all our relationships, especially our loves. Here too our disavowed Moons may seek revenge. When I'm in relationship with another, my emotional nature is reflective, reactive, and changing. Yet it can't be said too often: One cannot receive all the time. Even if I secretly know this about me, I will consistently forget it about you. And forgetting this means falling into the perfect mother archetype. If I'm angry because my partner isn't meeting my needs, I'm demanding my perfect mother, and my inner Moon has transformed me into a dependent child. This is one of the lessons of John Gray's milestone book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Intimate relationships are subject to emotional cycles, Gray teaches. Men retreat emotionally to renew themselves, women rise and fall in a cycle of emotional highs and lows. Acknowledging this is how we can receive and nurture ourselves-and steer clear of the perfect mother trap. The only thing Gray got wrong is that these cycles aren't rhythms of Venus or Mars. It's what happens when two Moons are involved.
In a solar return, horary, or event chart, we read the Moon's house as an area of changeability. But how do we honor this changeability in a natal chart? What really do I know when I see your Moon? What do I know when I see my own? I should know that you and I are fluid and changeable, reflecting, reacting, and withdrawing, cycling from dark to full to dark again. This is deeply meaningful information, a profound clue to the swing and dance of life. It's why Lord Siva, the Hindu god of destruction and creation, honors the Moon by wearing the lunar crescent on his crown. The Moon teaches that we exist in relationship-to ourselves as well as others-by gaining consciousness and losing it, by cycling in and out of light. This is true for men and women. Everyone has a Moon! But when I was the mother of a toddler, I searched in vain for the psychological theory that would help me teach this cycle of intimacy to my son, how to pull away and return, so he could learn this was natural and desirable, so that twenty years hence, he wouldn't lose the thread to his own emotions and shut down, or periodically hate the woman he loves, because he was first so disappointed in his mom.
When Moon Meets Moon
Astrologers presume that when two people have compatible Moons, or flowing aspects between one's Moon and another's planets, this will be a comfortable relationship, with plenty of shared sympathies and intuitive understanding. The Moon describes what we want from family life and the way we like to be at home. Venus and Mars hold the passion in a relationship. But for day-to-day compatibility-whether we like to hang up our clothes or leave them in scattered piles on the floor-this is the province of the Moon. When Moons are compatible, people say things like "I've always felt so at home with Bob" or "The minute I met Janine, it's like we'd known each other forever."
If only the relationship stayed that way! The longer we're together, the more time we have to discover each Moon's secret hallways and trapdoors, so that what once was familiar and attractive can become irritating and strange. I've had three relationships with men whose charts had a common lunar signature. One had a Virgo Moon, the others 6th house Moons. I have a Virgo Ascendant; the attraction is understandable. A man will often seek a woman to embody the traits of his inner Moon. My men initially loved the way I did Virgo, smart and organized, health-conscious, analytical, and self-possessed. What a miracle it was to realize we agreed on everything. We were so alike! But in each relationship, it wasn't long before I found myself being accused of bad behavior. They said I was judgmental, picky, and unsupportive, all shadow Virgo traits. In my twenties, with my first husband, this was probably a fair complaint. I was only my Ascendant then. During the ten years of my next relationship, with the help of a mountain of books and a couple of therapists, I worked earnestly to whittle this mask away. I learned that men didn't like to be criticized (Oh!). I developed new tolerance and patience. I dialed up the fun of my Leo Moon and reveled in the adventurousness of my Sagittarius Sun. When I entered the next relationship I was thrilled to finally be a different woman. But four months into our love affair, on one dark and very long night, I heard those familiar words: "I think you're judgmental, critical and negating." I was floored.
A friend of mine has a saying: "If ten men say you're drunk, lay down." Perhaps, despite the prior ten years of inner and outer work, I was still nothing more than my critical Virgo Ascendant. But strangely, each time this accusation was hurled, I felt that my critical, judgmental lover was negating me! So who was doing the Virgo really? And why did I keep attracting men with this sensitivity? Was it my own 12th house Moon, opposite the 6th, inviting me to play a familiar role as victim, reciting its treasured "Why do they all crucify me" script? When Moon meets Moon, it's like walking in a house of mirrors!
What really happens when one Moon shines into the dark emotional waters of another? When I look at you, do I see your Moon or mine? When one reflection meets another, we get an optical illusion called "projection." What I see in you may actually be something I don't see in myself. This ambiguity is threaded into our astrological symbolism. A man's Moon, for example, is said to describe his emotions, as well as his mother and his wife. Not being a man, I'm ill-equipped to fully sort this out, but even a woman's Moon has a dual role, describing both her feelings and her mother. Most days I feel as unlike my mother as an orange to a tomato, so how can my Moon be both of us? And why is my Moon different from my sister's, when the same woman was our mother?
I have a Leo Moon and I tend to describe my mom in Leo terms. I see her as an artist, an actress, a narcissist, a child. With my Moon in the 12th house of spirits, I acknowledge my mother as the one who taught me about fairies and magic and all things spiritual-as well as victim scripts and blurred emotional boundaries. My sister has a Capricorn Moon. She describes my mother in Capricorn terms, as a dictator and career woman, ambitious, withholding, and cold. My sister's Moon is in the 3rd house of communication. She considers my mother overly talkative, full of ideas and promises, but ultimately unstable. Each of out charts reflects a different aspect of my mother's chart. My 12th house Moon reflects my mother's Moon sign, Pisces. My sister's Capricorn Moon reflects my mother's Capricorn Ascendant.
New age philosophers like to say we choose our parents. Maybe there was a trip to a giant shopping mall in the upper worlds (about which we might wonder, "What were we thinking?!"). A more pragmatic explanation may be point of view. When we look at our parents, we select the details that corroborate our expectations; the rest we minimize. So we "choose" our parents through our planetary filters; in essence, we create them by what we choose to believe about them. My mother suffered from post-partum depression when my sister was born, which is consistent with the Capricorn tone of my sister's Moon. But my mother complains that as a baby, my sister was cold and distant, never smiled at her, and never seemed to like her since the day she was born. Each claims only to have reacted to the other's first move. I, on the other hand, with my more expressive Leo Moon, was a warmer, more loving child, or so my mother claims. And unlike my sister, I can remember my mother often being encouraging and creative. Was her Moon reflected in my waters, or mine in hers?
The Moon is memory, container of our past. But it is also porous, reactive and changeable. After my last Virgo Moon man, I entered a relationship with a 10th house Aquarius Moon (opposite my Leo). What a relief! No longer was I "judgmental" and "picky." After the gauzy veil of romance wore thin, we were trading insults like "You're such a narcissist" and "You're always working. You never have time for me." It took a few years for our respective Moons to throw tantrums and negotiate the territory, but now each is quite at home with the other, and not at all the same Moon as was with our prior partners.
If the Moon describes our habitual and changing emotional life, plus the traits of our mothers and partners, there can be no astrology text capable of summing it all. That is why, when practicing astrology, before saying much about someone's Moon, you should wait for the Moon to rise in the reading of its own accord. In fact, you should make your deepest study of your own Moon, so you can keep its neediness and projections out of the way. Then your Moon can do what it does best: listen, reflect, intuit and nourish the radiant Sun in front of you.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Seeing + Feeling + Doing = Intuition = Self-Integration
Jungian astrological terms for the four angles of the cross of matter, in the natural horoscope, are Intuition for the Ascendant, Feeling for the Nadir, Sensation for the Descendant and Thinking for the Mid-Heaven. On this note, I seek to understand where I am aligned naturally in myself, at the very beginning, at the Ascendant or Rising Sun, the horizon of conscious being where my only true reference point of existence is.
Sensations and thoughts, emotional thinking, and all the content of the mind is ultimately secondary, they are effects not causes. Intuition, the true center of all "positive thinking" and visualization as we understand these, is the deepest experience of SEEING (The Sun) FEELING (The Earth/Moon) and DOING (Earth/Ascendant), where the doing arises out of deep feeling and clear seeing, the source (sun) and ground (earth) spring (moon) of being.
In speaking of action, the fundamental intuitive aligning factor is already in place... and from here the next important is to LIVE IT which means "just do it!" and not to think about it more, over calculate, keep score, worry how I am doing, and all that psychological nonsense... the nonsense and useless thinking which gets stored at the dark or shadow side (and south node) of the Moon and personal planets like Mercury and Venus.
The goal is cut clear to INTUITION, the central aligning, seeing/feeling factor, where visualizing is acting and ideals made manifest through the Individual, the ONE channel through which the universal and personal are integrative and co-creative.
JDZ
Sensations and thoughts, emotional thinking, and all the content of the mind is ultimately secondary, they are effects not causes. Intuition, the true center of all "positive thinking" and visualization as we understand these, is the deepest experience of SEEING (The Sun) FEELING (The Earth/Moon) and DOING (Earth/Ascendant), where the doing arises out of deep feeling and clear seeing, the source (sun) and ground (earth) spring (moon) of being.
In speaking of action, the fundamental intuitive aligning factor is already in place... and from here the next important is to LIVE IT which means "just do it!" and not to think about it more, over calculate, keep score, worry how I am doing, and all that psychological nonsense... the nonsense and useless thinking which gets stored at the dark or shadow side (and south node) of the Moon and personal planets like Mercury and Venus.
The goal is cut clear to INTUITION, the central aligning, seeing/feeling factor, where visualizing is acting and ideals made manifest through the Individual, the ONE channel through which the universal and personal are integrative and co-creative.
JDZ
Monday, September 7, 2009
Full Moon Pisces
*This is the real deal right here, forwarded to me by a friend today, very true to my own experience of this Full Moon period...
Full Moon in Pisces today 9/4!
Dearest Friends
As of this morning, Friday September 4 at 9:03 AM PDT (CA time), we have
been blessed with a beautiful Full Moon in Pisces (chart in attachment).
Compassion, art, creativity, mysticism, meditation, healing, channeling
and dreaming... are all favored this coming month (until the next Full
Moon in Aries on October 3). As we naturally experience oneness with the
entirety of life and become acutely aware of our multi-dimensionality, we
are able to access higher realms of consciousness effortlessly.
This Moon asks us to balance our dreams with our reality. This is a time
to come into alignment with what our hearts dictate, no matter how crazy
this may seem to those around us. If we have been staying in a job, a
location or a relationship just out of a false sense of safety -or worse,
fear of change!- now is the time to fine tune our life circumstances with
our true purpose. It is important that our souls soar freely. When we
follow our intuition and take a leap of faith, we shall be amazed to
realize that the universe supports us energetically, financially and
emotionally in the most magical of ways.
This is a time to tap into our inner resources, brain storm with ourselves
and like-spirited others, come up with new ideas for our businesses, our
relationships, the places where we live and how we live. This is a time to
go deeply into our thoughts and the ways we communicate. We are likely to
find ourselves separating from -or avoiding- fear based, manipulative,
egotistical individuals (they may also be serving a bigger plan by
rejecting us!!!). Anger or turning away is sometimes the most appropriate
response in the face of what threatens our integrity. We spontaneously
X-ray situations and people. This enables us to detect the lies and
realize that not all is what it seems. Intense discrimination is called
for at this time!
We are regenerating at a cellular level which also means that we should be
paying close attention to our diet. It is recommended to eat the way
Nature intended us to: fresh, raw, organic fruit, vegetables and sprouts,
making sure we drink plenty of pure, energetic water, breathe deeply,
exercise in harmony with our bodies (yoga, swimming, walking...) and sleep
enough in an electronic-free, quiet bedroom. Our night visions should be
particularly significant during this month as we literally dream our
reality into being.
Now is the time to free ourselves from whatever has been blocking the flow
of our higher self. If we ask for divine guidance with a pure heart,
spontaneous healing can occur, the fulfillment of our highest purpose can
take place and turmoil can be replaced by peace.
We are truly entering a month where the separation between what was and
what is becoming is more and more visible. The gap between those who give
faith to the collective subconscious promoting fear, scarcity and lack,
and those who are becoming true masters of their own destinies by giving
power to their divine self to create financial abundance, happiness and
love, is deepening.
The question this Full Moon asks of all us is: what reality are we
choosing for ourselves?
In Loving Light.
M.
Michelle Karén M.A., D.F.Astrol.S.
www.MichelleKaren.com
Astrologer, author of
Astrology For Enlightenment
Atria books, Simon and Schuster
Full Moon in Pisces today 9/4!
Dearest Friends
As of this morning, Friday September 4 at 9:03 AM PDT (CA time), we have
been blessed with a beautiful Full Moon in Pisces (chart in attachment).
Compassion, art, creativity, mysticism, meditation, healing, channeling
and dreaming... are all favored this coming month (until the next Full
Moon in Aries on October 3). As we naturally experience oneness with the
entirety of life and become acutely aware of our multi-dimensionality, we
are able to access higher realms of consciousness effortlessly.
This Moon asks us to balance our dreams with our reality. This is a time
to come into alignment with what our hearts dictate, no matter how crazy
this may seem to those around us. If we have been staying in a job, a
location or a relationship just out of a false sense of safety -or worse,
fear of change!- now is the time to fine tune our life circumstances with
our true purpose. It is important that our souls soar freely. When we
follow our intuition and take a leap of faith, we shall be amazed to
realize that the universe supports us energetically, financially and
emotionally in the most magical of ways.
This is a time to tap into our inner resources, brain storm with ourselves
and like-spirited others, come up with new ideas for our businesses, our
relationships, the places where we live and how we live. This is a time to
go deeply into our thoughts and the ways we communicate. We are likely to
find ourselves separating from -or avoiding- fear based, manipulative,
egotistical individuals (they may also be serving a bigger plan by
rejecting us!!!). Anger or turning away is sometimes the most appropriate
response in the face of what threatens our integrity. We spontaneously
X-ray situations and people. This enables us to detect the lies and
realize that not all is what it seems. Intense discrimination is called
for at this time!
We are regenerating at a cellular level which also means that we should be
paying close attention to our diet. It is recommended to eat the way
Nature intended us to: fresh, raw, organic fruit, vegetables and sprouts,
making sure we drink plenty of pure, energetic water, breathe deeply,
exercise in harmony with our bodies (yoga, swimming, walking...) and sleep
enough in an electronic-free, quiet bedroom. Our night visions should be
particularly significant during this month as we literally dream our
reality into being.
Now is the time to free ourselves from whatever has been blocking the flow
of our higher self. If we ask for divine guidance with a pure heart,
spontaneous healing can occur, the fulfillment of our highest purpose can
take place and turmoil can be replaced by peace.
We are truly entering a month where the separation between what was and
what is becoming is more and more visible. The gap between those who give
faith to the collective subconscious promoting fear, scarcity and lack,
and those who are becoming true masters of their own destinies by giving
power to their divine self to create financial abundance, happiness and
love, is deepening.
The question this Full Moon asks of all us is: what reality are we
choosing for ourselves?
In Loving Light.
M.
Michelle Karén M.A., D.F.Astrol.S.
www.MichelleKaren.com
Astrologer, author of
Astrology For Enlightenment
Atria books, Simon and Schuster
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
