Ethics in Astrology

PAST

So: We know what our transits and progressions said about this two-year time period that’s starting to draw to a close. I saw, and Alice saw, that this guy was going to make at least one more reappearance, and thus far, he did make the one. I’m thinking maybe he’s not going to make the second, but he did make the one.

Now, what about Astrologer Number One (identified in the post, Hiring An Astrologer)? What was the deal with this person? How could this person look at the same two charts and tell me if I didn’t see Chi before the end of summer 2016, I’d never see him again, and that I’d have met someone else and marry him in October 2017?? When clearly what that was, was The Reappearance Of Chi??

I mean, even I could tell that, and I didn’t know crap about astrology at the time I saw it. All I did was buy some computerized transit reports.

Perhaps this may sound like no big deal to you, but what if I had taken that at face value and not looked any further?

Let me picture that for a minute.

I really believe I’m never going to see him again. I expect to meet someone else.

Now:

I don’t meet someone else, I haven’t done any more research, so I never found out about the codependency issues I have or the ones he has that are worse than I ever expected. I’m all alone in my life and devasted, and now he shows up again, and I don’t know any more now than I did when he left me. I’m still scared I did something to drive him away, I’m still setting my self-esteem by what he thinks or does, I don’t know any of the underlying issues, and here he is again, saying things are no better, he still loves me and misses me, and is it OK with me if he shows up at club meetings again?

Of COURSE I’m going to say yes, and then … of COURSE we end up in an affair. And of COURSE I end up trying to fight his family for him, which is what I’m expressly advised NOT to do.

BUT, because this astrologer also told me I had SIX yods and a Thor’s Hammer, and I did some homework and realized how unlikely it is for a person to have all that in one chart, I saw something was fishy about that reading, did more homework, and now I know NOT to try to fight his family for him, and I know WHY. (And it isn’t the reason you think.)

You know, if I had taken this person’s reading at face value, I could have made a very serious mistake last October, and really screwed up his life and mine.

Why in fuck’s name would this person read the same two charts and tell me this??

She even told me that Chi was “in my yod” and therefore the relationship could never work.

Flip back a post or two and you will see my research on that. He’s “in my yod” all right, and I’m in his yod, in a HUGE way I never would have anticipated or believed, but, um, my reading of that in NO way suggests the relationship has no chance of working. Quite, quite the opposite!

This person is doing well enough practicing astrology to afford to live in Manhattan. Clearly, this person has a following. If she knows anything at all (which her circumstances would suggest), WHY would she have done this?

I think I found the answer.

My “Hiring An Astrologer” post turned up on her Facebook feed a while back, and in those comments she reveals that she once had an affair with a married man, and now is dead set against these kinds of relationships, and hates doing these kinds of readings.

My question, then, is: THEN, WHY ARE YOU DOING THEM?

People may attack me for being obsessive, for not letting things go, for not moving on, for being touched in the head.

Well, in this case, thank God I was. Pain is a teacher and it’s there to motivate you to learn something. So if you can’t let it go, keep the fuck digging and learn all you can … as long as you are truly being open to what you’re told, even if the news is bad.

If I hadn’t done that, I would have made a very damaging decision seven months ago, based on her advice. Strange that, in tilting a reading based on the fact that she hates counseling in an affair situation, she would have actually helped perpetuate one, and favored the worst possible outcome!

Based on this situation, I think astrologers ought to think a bit about what situations they feel comfortable reading for and which ones they do not. If you hate extramarital affairs, and you know you have a prejudice and a bias, then as soon as you find out that is the situation you are being consulted for, return the client’s money and do not take the booking. You never know what your own personal biases are going to cause you to see and say that’s going to affect someone’s future for the worse.

Solitary Confinement.

Present

So, if you come here every week, you know that I've been waiting with baited breath to see if an important astrological prediction comes true right about now the way one did last fall. (If you haven't been reading: A very sad parting with someone I fell in love with three years ago happened when, as the title implies, this person went back to a troubled marriage after declaring himself through with it and moving out. In reading our astrological charts, it was predicted that I'd hear from this person again last October...and I did.

The details are scattered throughout the blog, but, in short, I beat myself up for two and a half years thinking I had stepped in on a marriage that could have been made whole again. Although the astrology indicated difficult personalities who didn't want to work on their own emotional difficulties that had wrecked the marriage, they were in marriage counseling the last time I had seen him, and I assumed they would make progress and be fine.

Last October my old love contacted me again and I got to hear the story of what actually had happened. It sounded a LOT more like the astrology and not at all like what we generally hope happens when we enter therapy to try to save a relationship. Well--I'll amend that. There was a leg of transits that sounded like two people working on their own emotional problems and making progress, and a leg of transits that were exactly the opposite. We got the bad leg.

The aspects that indicated I'd hear from him again were pretty subtle, and one well-known professional even read this and got it wrong. But the indicators that I would see this person again this summer and we would rekindle our relationship (and what would happen if we did that) were NOT subtle at all. They were HUGE.

That left me to figure out: When. 

After so many amazing things were reflected in the charts that turned out to be true, I actually started studying astrology myself. As a student astrologer, I have my strong points and my weak points, and one of my weak ones is pinpointing the timing of events. I had settled on the end of May by a process of extrapolation (by which I often get myself into trouble.) 

I had figured, the transits that favor getting back together all start over the summer, and how can those happen if you aren't speaking at least just prior? Plus, I knew he was going to be spending a weekend alone, and that would have been prime real estate. (That was when we'd always talked before.)

Again I say, extrapolative reasoning is no substitute for actually learning to read the transits and progressions. 

Well, it's Saturday night of the weekend in question, and I haven't heard from this person. Time to pack it in.

Our charts were full of dates with destiny, and up to now he hadn't missed one, from late 2014 to the present. Now he has. If a person stands you up for a date, you aren't going to see him again. I think this applies quadruple when it's a major date in three charts, one that transforms the lives of three people. It's kind of hard to see how the other transits are going to happen when: It is summer, and the person's not even here. 

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this. Yeah, sadness and devastation are among them.

You know how, when you meet that special someone, you just know? Johnny Cash, upon meeting June Carter, told her he was going to marry her, even though they were both already married at the time. I felt that way when I met my husband, and when I met Chi. (I met my husband and Chi at the same time; we were at a group meeting together. Weird sensation, that.)

Those have been the only two people I ever felt that way about. And I met my husband and Chi in the waning days of 1998, so that is a VERY long time. I work serving the public and I belong to two hobby groups; it's not like I don't meet other men. I just haven't felt that way about anyone else. And the older I get, the more eccentric I get (and the fatter). Meeting people who might be compatible gets harder and harder the older we get. 

I think I may have just finished the last relationship I'm ever going to have.

I'm not saying that as in, "Oh, Chi's gone, I'm never going to have anybody else, boo-hoo!" with the emphasis on having someone, anyone. I don't want some nameless, faceless
Generiguy, just to be with somebody.

I'm saying that because there really has to be something special about a person for me to feel that way. There's a quality of mind my husband and Chi had that other people just don't have. I'm not going to have that response to just anyone, and, having had the connections I've had with these two special, special men, I highly doubt I'm going to have that with anyone ever again. They were the ultimate relationships. No one else is ever going to come up to them.

I don't even feel comfortable dating anyone anymore. Any person you date wants to feel like you're there because you like and want them, not because they're a poor substitute for the one who died and the one who never came back. In order to date someone else I'd have to feel like I won't constantly be thinking of Simon and Chi when I'm with them. If I ever should find someone who meets that criterion, okay, but that's a tall order. A VERY tall order.

Chi was very special to me. Everywhere I go, I see his face, and many times a day, I think of him. Maybe one day that will change, but it's been three years so far, and right now he is irreplaceable. No, I don't know anybody to date, no, I don't want to date, and the only thing I'm going to find online is trouble.

So, my first thought about this ending is, I am now retired. My relationship life is over.

And that's okay. At some point in your life, if you don't die first, your relationship life WILL be over. That's just the way life is.

Time to take everything I've learned, sling it in a pack over my shoulder, and walk off down the road alone.

There's some grief involved in this. I love Chi very much. All it would have taken is a reappearance, together with a willingness to work as hard at healing old childhood wounds as I have these past three years, and I would have been there. Forever.

I probably will love him forever. But you can't be with a person who isn't here. All you can do is put it behind you, focus your life on other things, and forget about it.

I had hoped to be right. I had hoped to see him again. I had hoped for the triumph of true love, I had hoped for a better outcome. If he'd just shown up and been willing to work, it could have happened. We had that leg of transits. It was in our Davison, big time.

This, however, is life on Planet Earth. Better outcomes, by and large, aren't to be had here.

Perhaps the best outcome is that I finally learn how to be happy alone. I don't have much choice now. In almost five years since my husband died, I have only found two friends, one of whom I don't see much due to work schedules, and they're not the kind of friendships where you call each other all the time and go over and visit. I have no close familylike relationships at all, and I don't see any showing up. I am ALL alone in my life, and I don't expect this to change.

I would have been so happy if it could have been Chi. But it won't be, and it won't be anyone at all. I think this all happened to me so I could learn how to rely on no one but myself. Because, from now on, that's the only person I'm going to have.

My second thought is terrible sadness that something that could have been wonderful, isn't going to happen. The same kind of thing happened when Simon died. Oh, well. This is Chi's choice. Chi is in charge of what happens, nobody else (even though he keeps trying to blame other people), and I have no control of this whatsoever.

But then, third thought: relief. If he'd shown up and I'd been too desperate and had the affair instead of guiding him back to therapy (with better therapists, please!), there's no question I'd have been DUMPED. There it is, right there in 2021--he goes back to her one more time (it doesn't work any better then), and I am absolutely DEVASTATED.

At least I don't have to go through that. Now I can just get it all over with once and for all.

Of course, I was to get him back again after that. Guess that's not going to happen, either.

In the next two years I have a couple of transits that talk about being all alone and having to cope with a profound and archetypal sense of aloneness. Guess I know now what's going to happen for the next two years. It does help to know that, at least.

Fourth thought: My goal now is to do a better job with the next five years than I did with these five years. My first five years of being widowed, I have been the most horrible basket case. My misery prompted me to do a lot of research, a lot of reading, a lot of learning, and a lot of growing, as misery should. If you are miserable and you aren't doing these things, you are guaranteed to stay miserable, GUARANTEED. Misery is a sign that you're doing something wrong and need to change some very rigid thinking about something you are taking for granted as the truth of the way things are. I learned, yes, but I was lonely all the time and I was miserable, I spent too much, I ate too much, I let the housework go, and I slothed my way through life obsessing about what was gone instead of living in what is.

Now I have no choice. What is, is, and it is final. I can't go to the grocery store and order Chi or Simon back again; I have to cook with what's in the kitchen. If I don't learn to be happy with only what there is, I'm going to be suffering, and I won't be doing a good job with my life. The first five years, I did as well as I could do. Now I know I'm alone from now on, and I have to do better.

My fifth thought: I was so devastated and so sad today as I kept checking Facebook and I didn't see him. I thought of all the writing I've been trying to do, and I kept feeling like, If only this had happened, I would have been happy, and then I could have breezed through chores, housework, and calorie restriction, and I would have been happy to get my writing done. It wouldn't have felt like such a struggle, always dragged down because someone important was missing.

Isn't that the way life always is? When we have a relationship, even if there's sickness and problems and life isn't perfect, if the relationship is happy enough and most of our needs are met, life is basically good and it powers us through the rest of our life. Simon and I were like that. We gave each other courage to write and to try new things. Even if I wasn't good enough and it never went anywhere, we loved each other and we had a good time writing together, and that was what was important.

And when we don't have a relationship, or it's an absolutely horrible one and we're not happy, it drags us down til we can't do anything. (Um, I'm looking here at Chi and Rory.)

I remember as a kid, seeing scenes on TV where a parent or a close friend was behind a child, saying things like, "We have faith in you. We know you're wonderful and we know you can do it, and we love you!" And feeling like I couldn't do things because no one ever said that to me in my life. I needed the feeling of loving parents who were encouraging. My parents were ready with the belt and the flyswatter if I didn't perform, but there was none of that good stuff on the front end, just threats. "You'd better make all A's or else! You're LAZY!!!" And there were times I really didn't understand the math or whatever, and I cried and just got yelled at. Nobody helped me at all.

I'd see shows on TV where kids got helped and encouraged, even when they made a bad grade, and I'd feel really sad. Like TV was stupid, because everybody knew that wasn't how parents were in real life. And I'd sit over schoolwork and feel like, "I wish someone would encourage me like the moms and the dads on TV." Because if I was too good, someone (like BPD Mom) would act jealous that it was me and not her, or yell at me because I had a swollen head. (Because she did.) And then there's that feeling like maybe I was just singled out by the universe for some reason, not to be good enough for anyone to treat me like they treat kids on TV shows.

I hated living at home.

But today I thought, Why do I feel like that? Why do I feel like I can't be happy without Chi in my life, or that I can't motivate myself to do anything without him or Simon or other friends there to love me and support me and do things with me and care about me and make me feel happy all the time?

Why do I feel like I need someone else's help in order to feel happy and competent  enough to put myself into anything?

Because relationships are now OVER. I'm never going to have anyone close, I'm never going to have anyone who loves me, I'm never going to have anyone to encourage me, I'm never going to have anyone to support me, I'm never going to have anyone to be with or to do things with or to laugh with or to talk to, I'm never going to have any help from anyone to do anything, I'm never going to have anyone to come home to, in my life, ever, EVER AGAIN.

There's no one here but ME. Period. If I can't do it by myself, it just isn't going to get done. Just like everything else I've ever had to do my whole life. 

(Why do I have to have this life where I never get to have these good things other people get to have?? Not longer than fifteen short years, anyway. Lots of lucky people get these things, the loving support of good, healthy, trustworthy, steadfast, fun people, their whole entire lives. I get one healthy relationship, finally, and the guy dies before our seventh anniversary.) 

I guess with my background, I should be glad Simon happened to me at all. And I was! I was so proud that with my background, I finally had a healthy relationship and a real family (of one.) 

And that's why I've done so poorly these last five years. I thought that was all life was about, and now I can't function at all.

I guess I just designed a life of rugged individualism, and now I'm here, and it's no fun, and I don't want to do it. I want somebody to be my mommy and daddy and do things to emotionally take care of me...sort of like Chi does.

Tough.

My job is to be just as happy, and still do all those things, whether there's anyone here or not. I'm fifty years old.

Why do I still think I can't be happy and functional without someone else to be with?

So, I have to give up on Chi for good, and those have to be my goals now. I'm going to be alone, and I'm going to do everything all by myself. Forever.

Life's not going to give me any more people, so fuck you, life. I'm giving up on people and I'm done, and I'm doing it all for myself from now on. 

I have to stop thinking I need other people in order to feel happy and in order to motivate myself to do what I want to do. So, I have no one and it's not easy! I'm supposed to forget people and just do everything anyway.

All I have now is what I want to do. I'll never have anything else but me and my goals ever again.

*******
I suspect that even if Chi were here, he'd be no help anyway. I love him dearly, and no matter what. I know he has problems; we all do, and I don't love him less because of that. I understand what those problems are.

I did wonder, maybe he's not back because somebody turned a new leaf over there. Maybe he decided to be honest and tell her things were so bad he was interested in someone else, and she woke up. Maybe he's not back because they're okay now.

But I went back and reread what we wrote each other the last time we spoke. What I saw there was two people recycling codependency symptoms, and a person resentfully saying, "I made my bed and now I have to lie in it."

A person staying in a situation that was still terrible in order not to upset family. A person trying to wheedle his way back into club meetings just to see me once every two weeks, in order to get a few tiny crumbles of his needs met while he struggled to act like the person his family demands he be. (If I had've said yes then, maybe that's how the affair would have started now.) A person unable to pursue things he once found pleasurable because he was too depressed, and who thought he HAD to stay there anyway. And a wife who sort of slept her way through marriage counseling and hadn't changed much at all from the atrocious behavior that drove him to me in the first place.

What we are looking at, dear friends, is serious, entrenched mutual codependency. 59 and 63 years entrenched.

What are the chances that that situation turned around in the seven months since we last spoke??

And I'm looking at that chart and those transits. That chart demonstrates ability to do much better; and those transits do not describe a family and marriage situation that's getting any better. He can sit there if he wants, but he's going against his whole chart.

He has the right to do that. It's his choice, and no one else can choose anything for him...even if he blames them for his choice to stay unhappy, not get well, not do the work, and not grow. But it sure doesn't look like a happy way to live. 

Absent any evidence to the contrary, I have to assume he's still sticking with that choice.
 
Today I asked the tarot how he was. I got one card: Nine of swords. Google it.
For the past seven months, I have had a "Star light, star bright" wish: Don't send him back if he isn't capable of getting well.

My sixth line of thought about the sadness and the devastating ending of today: Perhaps I got my wish.

****
A Closing Note:

I'm not sure I'll have any more new developments to mull over here. If there's more to report, I will; summer's not over, after all. And it would seem Uranus is going retrograde and going to pass back over Saturn and hit my yod, within three degrees, one more time before finally moving off for good next March. (Interesting: When Chi spoke to me last fall, it was DIRECTLY over Saturn.)

But if there isn't anything else to report, all that will come up here now is any final thoughts I have to work out. (And I DO have some.)

Other than that, I plan to turn my attention now to finishing my novel, posting more on YourTango, and going over all this to make it shorter, more readable, and more accessible to people, and putting the revised version on my website. It's The ThinkingOtherWoman.webs.com.

Come visit me there. 

And thanks for reading.

It's been a tough three years. I needed the company.

Important reading.

Healthy things to do if you are feeling unloved in your marriage.

Best codependency article I ever read.

And this is my mother. Does it sound like anyone you know?

Um ... I have to post about this ...

Present ... another astrology post.


May I please direct your attention to this article.

I spent the last post nattering about my yod. I keep assuming my yod is at least partially about him. But I don't know that for sure. Maybe it's just about my struggles to find myself as a writer.

Then I began to wonder: Does anything in Chi's chart sit on any of the three planets in my yod? Because that would seem to confirm that it is, in fact, at least partially about him.

If you look at the article and the first picture, the first picture looks like my yod. The two long legs and the short base. The two long legs point at Saturn. The other two planets are Neptune and Uranus. I expected that, if the yod was about Chi, one of his planets would be at the same spot as my Saturn, Neptune, or Uranus.

Nope.

However, his Sun, Venus, and Neptune are all conjunct (which means that in the sky when he was born, if you looked up, they would all look like they were sitting on top of one another.) The conjunct isn't perfect ... Venus is a little off. But, when you place his chart over mine, his Sun conjunct Neptune is directly opposite my Saturn.

Which makes my yod ... the top drawing ... look like the bottom drawing. I have only a yod, but together we make a boomerang yod.

Please read the descriptions of both yods.

Chi, too, has a yod. Some astrologers wouldn't count it as a yod, because one leg of it is his descendant, with his vertex sitting on top of it, and not a planet. But, there are a fair number who would. I wonder if anything in my chart makes his yod a boomerang yod, too.

 I'm going to go and look. If something in my chart does this, I'm just going to shit.

...

...

...

Um ...

Chi's yod is organized such that the apex of it points at his Sun/Venus/Nep conjunction (which isn't a perfect conjunction, as the Venus and Nep are almost 12 degrees apart with the Sun between them. So the Sun is considered conjunct with the Venus and with the Nep, but Venus and Nep are not considered conjunct with each other. So one long leg of Chi's yod is Mars quin Neptune, and the other long leg is his descendant and vertex (which are conjunct in less than one degree) quin Sun, biquintile Neptune (Venus is left out). 

And my Saturn opposes his Sun, so ...

My Saturn turns his Sun/Nep, descending/vertex, Mars yod into a boomerang yod. Basically, superimposing our two yods over one another makes a formation that looks like a Star of David (only elongated because the two triangles are long and skinny.) We make each other's yods into boomerang yods.

Holy

SHIT.

No WONDER we have so many ties in our synastry they're like crazy glue. Not only that, but, say, when this Uranus goes over my Saturn, my yod AND his yod are activated at the same time.



Here's the question:

What is the point for two people to have such crazy-glue ties to each other in synastry that they can't forget each other, if all they're going to do is completely SCREW up their relationship and RUIN each other's lives??

Surely we planned to do better than that!

The articles state that the missing op that turns the yod into a boomerang provides the missing goal. So my Saturn is his missing goal. What is my Saturn? 

W
O
R
K.

WORK, work. WORK to resolve your childhood wounding. That's what I've done my whole entire life. That's what he HASN'T done his whole entire life. It staggers the mind to think how much better his life would go with better self-worth and a healthier understanding of relationships. And how do you get that?? WORK, work. WORK to resolve your childhood wounding!! My Saturn is his missing goal.

And his Sun is my missing goal. What does the Sun represent?

***

As Cafe Astrology puts it,

The Sun, the giver of life, represents our conscious mind in Astrology. It represents our will to live and our creative life force. 

Just as the planets revolve around the Sun in our solar system, we derive our life purpose from the Sun in our natal charts. The Sun is our ego. It is also our “adult”– the part of us that censors our “inner child”, that reasons things out, and makes final decisions. The Sun is our basic identity, and represents self-realization.  When you are asked, “Who are you?”, and you’ve passed your basic statistics and occupation, your answers will be a description of your Sun. The Sun also represents our overall vitality. The Sun directs us, and can be considered “the boss” of our chart.

The Sun () is so important in the chart, that the happiest people on this earth are those who identify (without over-identifying) with the Sun’s expression. Though one might think that the traits of their Sun would come easy to them, the truth is, the Sun shows what we are learning to be. It is very important to remember that the Sun represents reason as opposed to instinct.

With respect to the other luminary (the Moon), the Sun reflects the present or the “here and now”, while the Moon infuses the past into our lives through the feelings.

Grant Lewi referred to the Sun as indicative of “the psychological bias which will dominate your actions”. He went on to say, “You may think, dream, imagine, hope to be a thousand things, according to your Moon and your other planets: but the Sun is what you are, and to be your best self in terms of your Sun is to cause your energies to work along the path in which they will have maximum help from planetary vibrations.” (1)(Mmmkay. Well, I don't know about any "planetary vibrations," but you get the general drift.)

When we are “acting out” our Sun, we are purposeful, directed, proud, and creative. On the negative side, we can be haughty, overly willful, self-centered, and judgmental.

(Or, if it's conjunct Neptune the way Chi's is, we can spend our life using other people's approval, drugs, alcohol, food, TV, fantasy, busy-ness, other people's problems (especially family), or some other kind of addiction to help us run from reality instead of WORKING to become competent in the areas we don't feel competent in in our lives. Such as self-validation, perhaps?)

(Or, we could be very very creative and artistic. That's a good Sun conjunct Neptune. So I get to choose, just as he does, which way we want to manifest the Sun conjunct Neptune.)

(P.S., only one way has a good outcome.)

In the chart, the position of the Sun by zodiac sign represents the native’s life purpose and the style in which they leave their mark in the world. By house, the Sun’s position shows where our personalities shine. The areas of life associated with that house reveal the types of experiences which contribute to our sense of individuality and which shape our sense of pride. These areas of life are ones in which we seek to express and focus our Sun sign qualities.


Isn't astrology fascinating?

**************

Postscript: Why the fuck is it that as soon as I link to the perfect web page, the links don't work anymore no matter what computer I try to look up the page on?

Second best article on boomerang yods.

Is There Really A Cosmic Reason For Everything We Go Through? Yep. Yep. Yep.

PRESENT ... An Astrology Post. 

(Presenting the astrology behind all I just posted the last two weeks. Those not interested in some heavier astrology may wish to skip.)

For some reason, I started looking up yods on the internet again. I had found all this stuff on Ceres and Lilith (scary stuff on Ceres and Lilith, by several somewhat scary people), and that interesting thing on the Weeping Sisters and Saturn Chasing the Moon. I guess I wanted to look and see if there was anything I hadn’t found yet on yods.

Here’s the article by the Yod Queen, my astrologer, the gifted Alice Portman. 

Um, look at this. Here’s Alice, writing about quincunxes:

"The quincunx aspect is almost always present when there is death as death also describes a period of considerable change both for the person who dies and their family and friends.  The quincunx will involve the eighth house or the ruler of the eighth and the house that describes the person who dies.  E.g. if there is a transit of Jupiter in the 4^th house making a quincunx to Venus in the 8^th house, which  in turn rules the sign on the cusp of the 4^th house,  then a parent is likely to be the person who dies."

(And, OMG, look at this. The day my husband died: Transiting Neptune one degree off my descending [that’s the seventh house cusp, the house of marriage], quin my natal sun, and what rules my eighth house? Pisces, which is ruled by Neptune. Nice call, Alice!, So, here’s another way I could have predicted when my husband would die. I did, but not by this method.)

"Home moves also almost always have a quincunx transit, progression or direction as does conception and childbirth.

It can even show up when you meet the love of your life as this is likely to completely change your life."

And, um …

"If you have a natal YOD,  transits, progressions or directions that activate this configuration will indicate important times in the life.  If the YOD involves outer planets, then when that outer planet activates either of the other legs of the YOD  by transit you are likely to have some powerful experiences that can make core changes to your nature and your approach to life."

As I said, Uranus is one of the planets in my yod. Not only that, but when she read both our charts she felt that I was showing up as Uranus in Chi’s. (Apparently he shows up as Uranus in mine also.)

And WHAT did I just have?? Uranus sitting on Saturn, the apex of my yod and the handle of the bucket, making all those godforsaken squares. Now, when she read my chart she told me these things: This yod represents a spiritual test I have set up for myself before I came here to live this life, with great benefits to me if I pass. I am in spiritual graduate school and have done well with whatever situation I am testing myself on in this lifetime, over several lifetimes before. She didn’t think it had anything to do with Chi, or that there would be any adverse effects if I didn’t pass whatever test this is in this lifetime, just that my soul is trying to find out whether I’ve mastered something or not, and that it has to do with relationships and creativity due to the houses and signs involved. Hmm.

But then I found this yod article I had never seen before.

After I read that, I was thinking of what Alice had told me, but also of what I have learned about Saturn in my chart that I didn’t know enough astrology to know about at the time Alice read our charts a couple of years ago.

Now, what else is Saturn in this chart?? All those psychological problems introduced by my parents when I was growing up! So you have to look at the yod as, here are Neptune and Uranus here at the bottom trying to get along, but the thing damming up the works is the Saturn at the tip, the planet of restriction that we know, because of all the squares and what they represent, is all the psychological problems I have from growing up with a BPD mom and an absentee dad. I’m not really sure who “Astromanda” is, but she says that the two issues represented by the two planets at the ends of each long leg on the triangle don’t “see” each other or are blind to each other. 

Makes sense. I’ve been blind to much of what’s represented by the four Saturn squares most of my life. So much is made by astrologers of reading THE WHOLE CHART, and synthesizing THE WHOLE THING. So, instead of looking at this yod and going, “The apex is Saturn in the eighth,” I need to be saying, “The apex is these four emotional problems that growing up in a sick family with a BPD mother, overinvolved grandparents, and an absentee dad left me with.” That it took me 50 years to completely understand. “And they don’t work so well with the Neptune here and the Uranus here.”

If Nep Three is a writing career, that totally makes sense, because what are the Saturn squares? My parents made me think I was stupid, and I spent most of my life trying to succeed with fan fiction because I didn’t think I was smart enough or good enough to come up with my own original stories. My parents absolutely squashed any idea I might have of what I wanted to do in life, so I ended up in a career to please them and have had to work my butt off against student loans and time constraints in order to have the time to work on my own original novel ideas once I finally had them in my early forties. Saturn is holding Neptune back; Neptune is blind because of Saturn. Uranus One: Trying to assert myself in an original way in the world, with a Venus flavor because it’s in the Venus decanate. Saturn is holding Uranus back; Uranus is blind because of Saturn.

Astromanda writes that a yod describes a situation or a relationship that’s kind of off again, on again, and I can’t control how it works. Um, is that happening here?? Yup. And what do I see I have to do in order to avoid a huge lifetime catastrophe for two people? (Just sayin’: I think Alice was wrong about the “no big consequences” thing, here. I say two people because there may be nothing anyone can do about Rory. If she’s determined not to find her emotions, wake up in her marriage, and treat her husband better, there may be nothing anyone can do about those consequences for her. There isn’t a person alive on the planet who can be treated like that in a relationship and be okay with it.)

So look at all this: I’ve read one opinion (haven’t found it in other articles by other astrologers yet) that if Saturn is the highest planet in the chart, the individual will rise to prominence, but it’s a HORRIBLE road getting there. Also (different astrologer), if the chart has a formation like my bucket handle, where there’s ONE planet that contacts almost everything else in the chart, a transit going over that planet activates almost everything else in the chart at once, making it a very focused chart where all the planets are working together toward one goal. Often seen in the charts of prominent people, says this astrologer. I have Neptune in house three: often seen in the charts of prominent writers. AND … Midheaven (the point of career) is on the Weeping Sisters. And what do BOTH our transits say happens after 2023, when Chi leaves Rory and we’re together? Our bad legs: He’s still codependent, doesn’t talk up in the relationship, agrees to things he doesn’t like or want, acts and pretends so I have no idea he isn’t happy, and then …

And then …

And THEN …

Something happens in my career and I become successful, and I have a period where I’m busy, stressed, and worried and have to take my eyes off the relationship for a while. And Chi (who never recovered from codependency and STILL has no self-esteem) goes, “I KNEW I WAS REALLY UNLOVABLE! She doesn’t love me after all!!” attracts another affair, and at the highest point of my life I discover I’ve been cheated on and end up so brokenhearted I feel like my success is all dust and ashes.

Sounds like my career point is on the Weeping Sisters? Yeah. I’m going to end up crying, partially  because of my career.

Now look at Chiron in the eighth house: I keep attracting people who break my heart, let me down, and hurt me. I can react horribly, becoming hideously manipulative and controlling, or I can become very wise. Sound like it? Yeah. BUT: It’s also in Aries. According to one astrologer I’ve read, I blow through childhood emotional wounding with this placement like nobody’s business. (I’ll leave you to decide that.)

Here’s the thing: None of this bad stuff has to happen. He has one good leg in his transits where it doesn’t. (I have to look a little harder at mine.) But the only way for that to happen is for BOTH PEOPLE TO WORK THEIR ASSES OFF AT HEALING, GETTING WELL, AND BEING HONEST.

Right now he isn’t doing that, and I can’t control him into doing that. I can’t control him into leaving Rory. If I do that, I get a sick unhealed codependent and both our bad legs. The Weeping Sisters, all of it.

NOW. Having said all that …

Basically, my entire childhood created the idea that I not only can, but should, control other people and how they develop in life—just the same way Rory’s did her. My entire childhood created in me the powerful idea that I can be God and make someone else choose to heal. And that’s the Saturn that’s going to nix all that good stuff in the Davison and throw everything onto the bad legs. That’s going to give me the Weeping Sisters and a cheating husband and make a tragedy out of the second love of my life.

Now look at what our Davison says: Lots of hard work and tough tests for him, a leap of faith for me. Why a leap of faith for me? Because I can’t control whether he chooses to WORK AND GET WELL or not. The only power I have is to observe whether he is electing to do the work or not, and whether he is making progress or not, and STAY THE FUCK AWAY if he’s not. Even if I’m alone for the rest of my life and I’m heartsick about that. Even if it means the happiest times of my life are over forever, never, ever to return. Because I DO NOT CHOOSE WHETHER HE ELECTS TO WORK OR NOT, HE DOES, and WHETHER WE GET THE GOOD LEG OR THE BAD LEG IS ENTIRELY DEPENDENT ON WHETHER HE ELECTS TO WORK.

And my entire childhood has GEARED me to believe I should and do have control over that. The fact is, I. DO. NOT. And therefore can do nothing, nothing, nothing to control the outcome of this. NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING.

Read the first part of that second yod article. Really.

Now, I have to remember that Chi is an EXTREMELY SKILLED ACTOR. (And here's Moon Opp Neptune, which--guess what? Chi and Rory have in their composite, too. By now it should be obvious why. We're controlling, and he picks controlling women and then can't speak up for himself, because of a childhood that made him feel like he's inferior and has to grovel for anyone to love him.) 

He’s GREAT at smoking out what other people want him to do and giving it to them on the outside, while the real truth is that he’s seething with the resentment of really not wanting to, feeling overtaxed and overwhelmed and overworked, and the depression of unmet needs on the inside. And if he doesn’t want anybody to know, nobody’s going to know. In most cases, therapists joke that if you really want to know the state of the parent’s marriage, ask the children. These children don’t have a CLUE—STILL—and that’s why they’re bludgeoning Chi back into the marriage. Told you … skilled actor.

Now, look at this. What dooms our relationships? In Rory's and my case, it's because we're controlling. Why are we controlling? In my case, it's because childhood taught me that being controlling in trying to make others heal was doing the right thing! But it isn't, and that is a CENTRAL LESSON OF MY LIFE. If I don't get that lesson, I'm going to keep picking and trying to control sick people who don't want to do their work, and the rest of my life is pretty much screwed as far as relationships with other people go.

(Rory appears to be controlling for other reasons.)

Why is Chi thinking he's inferior and groveling and martyring himself to controlling people? Likewise: CHILDHOOD TAUGHT HIM that was the right way, and HE THINKS HE'S DOING THE RIGHT THING. When really he's dooming his relationships, because he's just soul-murdering himself, demanding that he be other than who he really is, and taking a pile of abuse from other people besides. Then he ends up so crazy with pain--as anyone would!--that he has to escape into an affair. And, BOOM! There goes the relationship, even if it was with someone who was struggling to meet him halfway. Nobody can meet you halfway if you don't like yourself, or trust the other person, enough to communicate honestly about your needs and feelings.

This is how a bad childhood dooms relationships and lives. We go all our lives trying so hard to be good and do the right thing, when the problem is we learned the wrong shit to begin with. What we're believing is the right way is actually the WRONG way, and if we can't get that through our thick skulls, we make the same fucking mistakes over and over and over and the problems get worse and worse and worse.

And if you know how, you can find all this in your horoscope chart, as well as the best self-help books. When your chart and your childhood recovery literature is telling you the same thing, and then you see it play out in your life ... well, maybe you should sit up and pay attention. (Parents: Get thyselves into parenting classes immediately!)

If Chi chooses to ACT and LIE rather than GET WELL, and I’m too needy and controlling, I’ll believe him (Nep Three, square ascendant, Prone to miscommunicate, prone to misunderstand, prone to miscommunicate, prone to misunderstand)… leading to the Weeping Sisters and Disaster.

Anybody can tell you, “Don’t have an affair with a married man,” and, “He’ll just turn around and do the same thing to you.” And you can grit your teeth and obey, but you don’t want to. You haven’t changed in your heart, because you haven’t actually LEARNED ANYTHING.

THIS, IS LEARNING SOMETHING. Learning something BEFORE bad things happen, rather than learning something BECAUSE bad things happened. Something Chi’s never done, and needs to cultivate as soon as possible.

All my life, I’ve dealt with horrible situation after horrible situation, wishing I had known all the facts before I chose what I chose.

This time, my wish is granted, thanks to astrology and to a lifetime of reading that taught me what I needed to know to make sense of the astrology. (And desperation miserable enough to make me buy 25 years of transits.)

LEARNING SOMETHING removes the need to do that bad thing and have the affair.

Without the learning, we grudgingly agree to do something out of a lack of understanding, because “Other people say so.”

WITH the learning, we understand why and how. Now we don’t WANT to do it anymore.

Even if we’re still crying because we miss him.

So: Is this a test? Am I going to pass it?

I think it’s a yes on both counts.

I’m not clear what the great benefits are if I pass, though. I see what the consequences are if I don’t, but if I do … is the great benefit just that I get to spend the rest of my “Chiron return” untroubled by the fear that a codependent husband or significant other is lying to me about our relationship because he believes he is no good? Or is it that we get Chi’s good leg and a great relationship?

And, you know, I already know the answer to that.

The answer is what HE decides to do. And I have NO control over that. Period.

And that's what "Astromanda" says yods are about.

Isn't astrology fascinating?