Willingness.

Present.

Since the time for the predictions is rolling around, and I haven't seen hide nor hair of Chi, this is the time I'm starting to get worried. To the point of upset, to the point of obsessed.

And that isn't okay. Obsession is painful. Obsession obscures everything else that might have been good in my life. Obsession increases the chance of doing something DUMB. Obsession means I won't be happy with anything other than the outcome I wanted. And that outcome, as far as my eyes can see, isn't happening.

Astrology. What a double-edged sword. What I've discovered helped me feel better, in that I saw that stepping into this in the first place did something beneficial in this person's life--at least in terms of showing him that what he was dealing with wasn't normal and that he could actually have a relationship in which he was treated differently. I once had an hour-long panic attack because of my ethical qualms in doing this. AND I have seen, thanks to last October, that I don't have to hate myself for what is normally a horrible, horrible, horrible thing to do. He needed it. It was beneficial for him...although it did usher in a period of, um, change in their relationship. In that sense, being able to read charts has been helpful.

BUT...unfortunately for me, I could also see the best possible outcome of our relationship. And it was one that I would have been very happy with. This has been unfortunate for me, because now I want that and I'm anxious about it.

I keep going around and around about this. Right about now, Rory has some pretty big transits showing she's being borderline abusive to Chi again. (Nothing she hasn't done before, sad to say.) And this was to be the occasion of her entire next year, which I took a look at this week and found...shocking.

She has exactly one out of twenty-four transits that talks about happiness in her intimate relationship. ONE. A couple more talk about being of retirement age, and about happiness in things she's doing in the outside world. The rest, and I mean ALL the rest, are talking about great unhappiness in her intimate relationship, the fault mainly of Rory herself, and fully twelve out of twenty-four transits and progressions talk about somebody in the relationship having an affair. (Three guesses who that is.)

Correspondingly, only three of twenty-two transits and progressions he has speak of any kind of peace in his intimate relationship. ALL of the rest describe great unhappiness, and five specifically point to an affair starting.

Of mine, half are talking about being the third party in an affair, cautioning me to watch my behavior and stay out of power and control. In the other half, I'm all alone, and half of those, I'm sinking into ennui and despair about it. The other half of the alone ones show me finding a creative purpose for my life and being content with just that.

That last is, well, a happy enough ending, I guess. Things, as you can see, could be a hell of a lot worse.

But, thanks to astrology, I have our Davison, which shows me that the happiest of endings here was indeed possible (once possible?) and of course when you meet someone you are that compatible with and love this much, you want that ending. (At least, I do.)

This is the bad side of being able to read for yourself. Now I sit here and point at that happiest of endings, and go, "But how do I get there?"

Here is where I start to second-guess myself. What if I had said yes last October?? Well, if I had, I would have virtually guaranteed the affair starting right around now, because we would have been speaking regularly and in contact.

But I said no. I had the chance to say yes, and I said no. 

Does that mean I can never be with this person now, because I heard from him again and I said no?? Was that my only window, and now it's over and that's the end, because I could have said yes then and I didn't??

In that case, am I sorry I said no?

Yes, because I love and want this person and that may have been it, my last chance!

But...wait a minute...

WHY did I say no?

I said no because I saw in the astrology, and I knew from the past, that if he had me to complain to and fantasize about, he wouldn't W-O-R-K ON HIS CODEPENDENCY. He wouldn't engage with his problems. He'd simply use me as an escape and as a complaining outlet, and he wouldn't get better. Clearly, that would not be the best outcome for him, so I bit the bullet and did what I knew was right. I did what I knew would be best for him.

Besides, I knew that there would only be one reason I would have said yes to that. Because I saw that he was sniffing around again, and I was trying to tempt him away from Rory once again. In other words, an unhealthy exercise of power and control, which I am expressly advised NOT to do, and which I completely see the wisdom of. 

These two VERY good reasons were why I said no last October. AND ALSO...

Looking ahead to this year, I could see that I stood an excellent chance of getting him back again no matter what I did, so I bet big. I placed a BIG bet that if I did the right thing, I would get him back anyway...which made doing the right thing a whole lot easier. If I really believed then that if I did the right thing, I'd lose him forever...I'm not so sure I could have done the right thing.

So now I've done the right thing...and I'm doomed to lose him forever no matter HOW shitty Rory acts from here on in??

Wow. Life IS unfair.

(Again.)

So now I find myself in a tailspin. When was I supposed to see this person again, anyhow?? The last time was pretty easy to extrapolate. The markers I used last time were clearly obvious to me. I'm trying to pin down how my teachers did it, and I'm afraid I'm just not good enough to be able to pin anything down to any specific month. Some of the same kinds of things are active again, but that's over a period of time and I don't know how to pin anything down any better. All I know is, if it's March 1st and he's still gone, he's probably gone forever at that point.

And I keep doing this to myself and it's miserable. Why do I want someone who puts me through this???

I had to think long and hard about that. 

One answer, and this one I know. (Besides that, it's also clearly spelled out in the astrology.) And that is, I DO NOT HAVE CONTROL.

I've been over this before. I. HAVE. NO. CONTROL. OVER. THE. OUTCOME. OF. THIS. SITUATION.

Just like I have no control over what my mother did and whether she got well and ever treated me better or not, I have no control over Chi and whether he will ever get well and treat me better or not. As with all problematic love relationships, this one mimics, absolutely perfectly, the old childhood struggle to get my mother to act better and treat me, a tender, vulnerable young child, the way I needed and deserved for her to treat me.

(So does Chi's with Rory and Rory's with Chi, come to think of it. That's why we're in the triangle to begin with.)

I have one and only one legitimate area of control: If the relationship shows up again, look to see if it appears healthy or not. If not, say no. (That's what I did last October.)

Last year I accepted that. This year, I have to bring myself back to the fence and accept it all over again. Because I lived a childhood that taught not only that it was GOOD for me to try to control other people's decisions to heal or not heal, but that I COULD control other people's decisions to heal or not heal.

And I can't.

The only person who can decide to heal is Chi. And if Rory does, too, I lose.

(At least two of us would be happy that way. An almost acceptable outcome.)

The other problem I see is one of willingness.

In order to accept the outcome that Chi and Rory grow together and become happy again, and I never see him again, or they don't, but he just doesn't respect himself enough to leave because he still feels as if everyone else's feelings are more important than his own (this is unhealed codependency, folks), I have to be willing for that outcome to happen.

And I'm not.

I want my fairytale, goddamnit!!!

No, I don't want everyone else's lives ruined. But, I don't want to be the instrument of ruin, either. Then, I simply have to accept that the only way I get my outcome is if, A.) Rory continues to be the same old Rory--she sure was last October--and, B.) Chi gets healthy enough that leaving looks like the only option.

And I have ZERO control over either of those. Zero, zero, zero.

So I might as well stop scanning those horoscopes and overthinking last October. This has already been decided for me.

All I have to do is accept it, and be willing to live another outcome than the outcome I wanted.

Because it very well may be that next spring rolls around, and I'm still living here in the outcome I didn't want. This outcome I'm not happy in.

And there won't be any recourse then, just like there isn't any now.

How can I make myself stop hurting, and make myself willing to live the rest of my life just the way things are now?

Do I even get a consolation prize for doing the right thing? Like, do I get someone else?? Not that I can see. Not 'til I'm sixty-five, if then.

Clearly, I'm supposed to become happy without Chi, without any romantic male partnership ever, ever again. I'm supposed to be willing for that to happen, I'm supposed to learn to be happy with that.

Man.

That is a very tall order.

But it kind of looks like that's the way it's going to be.

And I'm very sad. That's just the way it is for me. I am very sad.

Because of our Davison--correct in the case of me and my husband, correct in the case of Chi and Rory--I see that we really could have been very happy together. If we BOTH were willing to do the work.

And I hope one day I won't feel this way about it anymore. I am too sad.

I have learned a lot, and I have become wise from this experience. I'm just so, so sorry I had to lose this man in order to do it. The price of wisdom is just too high, sometimes.

I would have been SO much happier the other way. Provided the guy actually got healthy enough to be in a relationship with me, and I felt solid enough in that knowledge.

But I don't control that. Chi does.

What I control is, do I get well from this or not? Can I become happy again, no matter what happens?

And HOW THE FUCK DO I DO THAT????

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.

Just Because You Know What's Wrong With You, That Still Doesn't Make It Go Away.

Present.

I’m discovering as I learn more that I must have one of the unluckiest natal charts you can get. Not ONLY do I have Saturn square my Sun, Moon, Mars, AND Mercury, but I also was born with my midheaven right on top of the Weeping Sisters, and throughout my entire childhood I experienced a really awful phenomenon called “Saturn Chasing the Moon.” (It didn’t end until I moved out of the house and got away from my BPD mother. Isn’t that appropriate??)

Who the FUCK has all that? Not to mention: Saturn yod with Neptune and Uranus, and Saturn is the highest planet in the chart, the “handle” of a bucket formation.

Hmm.

It is said that the Weeping Sisters guarantee you a life with lots to weep about.

No shit.

Something else just occurred to me. Anne Ortelee, when she looked at my chart, told me I’d have met and married someone else by October 2017. I don’t know what she was looking at—Well, yes, I do. She was looking at Chi! But I looked at the same chart and transits and saw me hearing from Chi again. So did Alice Portman, and when I went to class, my teacher pointed out some additional indicators of something Big and Fateful happening then.

At first I thought, well, I can forgive Anne, she didn’t have both our charts. Then, I remembered: Yes, she did. She told me Chi was eight years old emotionally. (Now, that I can believe.)

I was right, over a big practicing professional Manhattan astrologer.

So I guess I’d better pay attention to what I see now.

Except … (and I’ve been through this once already, so I guess that will help.)

This, like last fall, is where I go: It’s May. Regardless of the accuracy of our charts so far, free will trumps charts every time. Here’s where it doesn’t happen, and I never see him again. And even though I know how horribly dangerous this relationship is, how unhealthy this person is from a bad childhood, and how resistant he is to doing the work required to get well … I’m still hideously depressed. Really, really hurting.

I already know I’m supposed to be grown up. Not needy for relationship, not fused with other people, just taking care of what I have to do every day, humming to myself and in a happy or at least even frame of mind, like everyone else. But something’s just plain wrong with me.

I know that this place where my heart just hurts and hurts is really just that baby and young child from 45 years ago, squashed by sick parents and rejected by cruel schoolmates and let to cry all alone. I know. But I still can’t make it stop, and I still can’t make it go away.

And I really need to get over this, because I see now, from the time my husband died, I was going to be all alone in my life for at least ten years, no matter what, and possibly even longer than that. I may have the power to barge in and change what’s going to happen. If I insist, I don’t have to be all alone for the next ten years. But if I do that, there’s hell to pay. 

Basically, I can choose to be all alone in my life now, or I can put it off until I’m seventy-one. 

I’m wayyyy better off doing it the right way … doing it now. If I grab at the relationship now, because I’m too lonely and weak and sad and scared to just walk away and accept that I might be alone forever and ever more, it’s a sick enmeshed codependent relationship. The same things happen in that relationship that have happened so far in theirs. I’m Rory, and he’s Chi. Nobody learned anything. Nobody got well. And it ends horribly at an age when NOBODY wants their relationship to end horribly.

Clearly, that just can’t take place. So I’m left with:

Scenario One:

He shows up on schedule. He’s still codependent, of course, because he sure as hell wasn’t doing anything with his recovery last fall, and I didn’t see much chance of that happening anytime soon, not with the attitude I was hearing and the people he spends time around. I still have to send him back home, and request once again that he address his own problems, not everyone else’s. We wouldn’t be back in each other’s lives for keeps in any case before 2023 (and there’s more in his chart supporting that.) And maybe Rory wakes up along the way and 2023 never happens. Because if she makes ANY change for the better at ALL, he stays. He doesn’t want to upset his adult children and his family. And that's the way it should be. Iff she wakes up and does better.

Scenario Two:

Something’s happened. He’s too codependent to even try ever getting out of there no matter how miserable he is, or Rory woke up and they fixed their marriage, finally. Summer goes by and he’s just, gone. Even if my transits are right and some relationship shows up in five years—it’s just with someone else—I’m STILL alone for five more years. The only way not to be alone for a total of ten fucking years is to accept an illicit affair with Chi this summer—and that turns out bad. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Even though we have a Davison with very good potential. As I said, it seems that the reason good Davisons don’t turn out good is: Somebody’s being an asshole.

And what do we usually call people who have an affair with a married person (among other things)?

Although, I have to say: that 2023 relationship is reflected in all three sets of charts and transits. AND progressions. That speaks pretty loudly to me.

Whatever happens, I’m alone for at least five more years, and possibly even longer than that. Alone with the housework, alone with the laundry, alone with the dreariness of life.

It’s not like I haven’t met new people in five years. It’s just that they’ve all had emotional problems, or none of them fit like the relationships I always needed and USED to have.

This is when I go right back to thinking, Those were the good times in my life, and now they’re over and today sucks. There’s no point reminding myself that the company of a stuck, unhealed, self-loathing codependent wouldn’t help. He’d just yes me and resent me, yes me and resent me, then talk about me behind my back and attract another affair instead of risking and showing up and connecting and being authentic and being real, and the relationship would LOOK wonderful and BE fake. (Just like their marriage.)

I know. And it isn’t helping.

Why can’t I just be healed and live life like other people? What is it going to take to change my feelings and get me there?

**************************************************
Shortly after I wrote all that, this thought surfaced ... 

(coming next week ...)

The Rory Post I Promised...About the Different Outcomes In Your Life Showing Up In Your Transits.

PRESENT...An Astrology Post.

So, here's how I discovered this. I'm walking through Rory's transits for the next six months, and I see a lot of what I expect given mine and Chi's, and also given the fact that she is still in the position I saw her getting promoted to in her transits this time last year. 

There's something about a sudden freedom from a restriction of some sort...that she may experience the arrival of a person into her life who's going to teach her something...that she's experiencing a time of good social relations with other people...more about confronting inhibitions and restrictions placed upon her by herself and other people...a need to break away from an established order...that she's inappropriately idealizing important relationships in her life...more about receiving a spiritual teacher or guide figure...the need to work very hard to accomplish a task. All of which I expected to see, given what I see in my transits and Chi's over the next two years.

And then...right there in the middle of this mostly ominous stuff...here I find a find a great big ol' Saturn trine Venus. Right smack dab in the middle of what is at great risk of becoming Chi's affair year.

(Some background: I recognized the Saturn trine Venus right away because it was part of the reason I so badly misjudged what was going to happen with Chi and me three years ago. I had this, which often augurs the advent of a very successful and happy relationship, plus a number of other very pleasant transits that promised the same. And, at the same time, I saw several that made me blink and think, Huh? That sounds like he's with Rory! I didn't know what to think. But, Chi asked me to trust him, and I loved him and promised to, and all three therapists believed the marriage was likely to end. So, I had three pieces of evidence leading me to believe the wrong thing. I've wondered about that for three years. What were both sets of transits doing there?)

Now, when I've heard from Chi again right when Alice Portman, several important transits, and my astrology teacher saw that I would, and in the middle of a shitpile of transits suggesting we end up in a real affair...Rory has a Saturn trine Venus.

WTF? Why is that there? What am I supposed to make of that?

I pondered this for several days, and suddenly it all made sense.

Remember several posts back, when I remarked that around two years ago Rory had all these transits telling her it was a good time to dig into her childhood problems and do some very deep and cutting psychological work? That it was a very good time to straighten out some problems that were keeping her from living the way she really wanted to?

She had them, I saw them then, and I knew he was in therapy and they were in marriage counseling. Naturally, I thought they were getting top-notch help (see Avoid the Below-Average Therapist), and I assumed they would both work hard and make real progress. She had these good work transits when she needed them. I assumed she would make good use of them. Therefore, I expected they'd save their marriage (as most marrieds in this situation eventually do). I'd lose Chi forever, and I was correspondingly depressed.

Then I heard from Chi again, and I heard what had actually happened.

Rory did NOT make good use of those transits. Here where she could have entered individual therapy herself, made progress herself, and saved her marriage...she elected not to make use of this opportunity.

Now it hits me--if she had, this is where the marriage would have started to work out! This is where things should be getting easier, and where they'd start to be happier and recommitted to one another on a healthier and more honest basis.  If that had happened, she'd be living that Saturn trine Venus in her marriage right about now!


But she didn't...and I'm living all the UNhappy ones instead. The ones that are talking about the need for deep psychological work and introspection, and the need for me to stay out of power and control. The ones coming up in the next few months that are calling me a control freak and telling Rory she's about to receive a spiritual teacher in the form of an enemy whose controlling nature is going to wreak havoc in her life.

THERE REALLY ARE TWO TIMELINES DEPICTED IN HERE FOR EACH PERSON.

Holy toledo!!!

The reason this is of extreme importance in the coming eighteen months or so:

ALL of those good psychological work transits Rory just finished with, are now coming up in Chi's chart.

Now he's getting them! HE now has the opportunity to work out unresolved childhood issues that Rory just had and elected not to pursue.

And I know, from reading ahead in his transits and mine--confirmed by everything I know about codependency and enmeshment in relationships--what happens if he does not do the work, and I've already detailed it before in this blog. He stays hideously codependent, flip-flops between two women for some FIVE YEARS (tearing the living shit out of everyone involved), as I detailed in The Missing Piece One and Two. He finally leaves the marriage, but his next relationship (unfortunately reflected in my transits) is unhealthy. He begins codependent behavior almost immediately, and in a few short years finds that, once again, he's agreed to things in the relationship that he doesn't really like, and once again is afraid to speak up for himself.

Then crisis hits the relationship. His relationship partner has something going on in her career that takes her eyes off the relationship for a time. Chi, being emotionally fused and still codependent, goes into a tailspin. "I KNEW I wasn't lovable!" He finds someone else and has another affair, and the relationship is never the same, and ends HORRIBLY about ten years later, when we're 71 and 81.

IF you follow his leg of bad transits.

In actuality, starting right about now and picking up steam after 2019, there's a good leg of transits, showing a person who uses the opportunity coming up in the work transits this year I've just told you about. This leg shows a person who works hard and makes a good recovery, and whose life goes much, much better from then on.

Now, what makes the difference between Bad Leg One, and Good Leg Two? In Bad Leg One, why doesn't Chi take advantage of those good work transits, dig in, do the work required, and get the fuck well??
 
Because he's having an affair with me instead.

Because I didn't put all this together, didn't get over my childish need for emotional fusion with someone else (see the post that's coming next week for details), and didn't hold off, hold his feet to the fire, and absolutely refuse to be with him if he doesn't take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to free himself of codependency and low self worth, work his little ass off, and HEAL.

Because I was afraid I'd lose him if I did that, and decided to have the affair and see if I could tempt him away from Rory.

I wasn't farsighted enough to see that if I did that, all I'd get was a very sick, STUCK codependent who would turn around and hurt me the way he does himself (and, eventually, everyone else.) Just like my mother. Just like Jane. I didn't fucking learn anything, and turned around and picked yet another one...when I could have put my foot down, and maybe he'd have worked and gotten well!

And, whaddya know?? Look at MY transits right now!

Another split!

Out of six big transits going over the next six months:

One talks about being noticed in a career.

One talks about having big ideas tempered with common sense, and knowing what I can and can't do.

Here's Robert Hand writing about the third one on the good leg:

Pluto trine Pluto: Up to you 

Beginning of February 2018 until mid-December 2019: This is a period of stability, in which very deep and perseverant energies lend themselves to you. Whether you make use of them or not is completely up to you. However, if you do decide to use them, there will be potential for inner growth. From this position you can gain deep insights into the functioning of your psyche which might have shocked you at other times. This is a time for simplification and for finding out what is really meaningful to you. It is a period when you are not only able to, but should, make changes. It is a time when you are able to eliminate the old and outworn elements of your life with relative ease because there will be little in the way. It may even seem so easy that you are not aware of its being an issue, but you should not rest on your laurels. Take an inventory of your life, your friendships, your possessions and other attachments and involvements. See which of these support you and at the minimum allow you to grow. These should be preserved. But do not struggle to preserve anything that does not serve you, especially if it seems to want to pass away. This is most important, because whatever you do not eliminate from your life now that does not serve you could become a cause of difficulty during more stressful times that may come along later.
 

And the last three, the bad leg, is talking about a spiritual teacher that will come into my life, who doesn't look like a spiritual teacher, and a transient, bad relationship that's very challenging and likely to end fairly soon. Right through the middle of 2020, which is when Rory's transits sound like Chi is back, and mine sound like I've been very painfully dumped, and more brokenhearted than I've ever been.

(And considering the last four years I've spent, that's really saying something.)

Now: Astrologers typically read only two or three years of transits at a time. If I had done that, I would never have been able to make sense out of all of this. To make sense out of all of this, I needed all three charts, and I needed to look at ALL the transits over a period of some twenty-five years!

But now that I have, look what I've learned!

And, I hate to point this out, but everything in everyone's bad transit legs has happened so far, right on schedule, from 2014 up until October of last year.

Will it happen again?

Stay tuned...

Yep. I think there really is something to the idea of doing a Whole Life Progression. There really is. 

Years ago, when I didn't know crap about astrology, and used to scrimp and save to buy one yearly transit report off astro.com at a time, I used to notice that half my transits always sounded lovely and half sounded bad. That I always lived the bad ones, and never the good ones. It got to where, if I saw a transit that sounded wonderful, I knew that one wouldn't happen. And I always wondered why.

It happens because we're unconscious, we're fucking SLEEPWALKERS, and we don't fucking LEARN. A classmate said it in the last class I took: "Astrology is only predictive when we don't learn anything. Astrology is only predictive because people do the same things over and over."

After this, you can't tell me astrology is bunk, or that it's not useful!

Interesting post about the "Chiron Return"

ChironTransits

 

(I didn't get the Rory one done yet. Sorry, y'all. It's fucking TAX TIME. Until I get it done, here's this...)

Transiting Chiron conjuncting, paralleling, contra-paralleling natal Chiron

 

Otherwise known as the Chiron Return, when Chiron has completed a full cycle of the zodiac and returned to its natal position in our charts.This is the culmination of the journey of Healing and the evolution of consciousness up to the age of 50-51. (Right about now for me.)

 

Its effect will lie somewhere between two extremes, depending on our level of attention and conscious work on the themes of Healing and evolution of consciousness in our lives to date.In all cases, our original Wounds and their attendant issues will surface again.Whether we respond with Love or with fear, guilt, remorse, anger and resentment will depend on our previous work.

If we have not attended to our Wounds and issues during our lives and have not worked towards Healing and higher consciousness, ultimately aspiring to Unconditional Love, we will be thrust back into the thicket of our Woundedness.In this case, our core Wounds and issues will surface again, demanding attention, Healing and resolution. In a sense, we are required to repeat a grade of school. However, the likelihood of truly beginning in-depth work on our subsequent Healing and evolution of consciousness definitely diminishes with time.This is due to our age, to the general level of crystallization of our personality and to associated emotional habits, masks, protective mechanisms and ingrained escape routes.This is not to say that it is impossible.It simply becomes more difficult over time and we become less inclined to bother with it. (Sad to say, this was almost ten years ago for Chi.)

 

In this case, the Chiron Return can be, paradoxically, a time that we hardly notice due to the success of our long-standing patterns of avoidance and evasion.Conversely, it can be a time of monumental regret.The Chiron Return can open the Pandora's Box of our core Wounds and long-standing unresolved issues.Unable to deal with or answer the tortured callings that arise from our fragmented consciousness, we go into crisis or, alternatively, even deeper into retreat.Only in the final moments of death, maybe many years later, will we have an opportunity to feel Healing and sense the Truth of the Love around us and in us.It is only then that the stranglehold of our personality mechanisms finally relaxes with the weakening of our physical vehicle.I venture to suggest that, if you are reading this book and have gotten this far in it, you will not have to fear the aforementioned scenario!

 

If, however, we have attended, to a greater or lesser degree, to our Wounds and issues during our lives, the best we can look forward to is a deep sense of completion and peace during this transit.Although our core Wounds and issues will arise again during this time, our previous work will help us to appreciate and finally Love these Voids that have given us our core Values and, ultimately, our Divine Design.

 

It will be a time when we can move into another octave of Healing and evolution of consciousness.The cycle repeats, but on another finer energetic level, i.e. another octave.We are given an opportunity to move to deeper levels of Healing and higher levels of consciousness, forever expanding to the limits of the solar system and, simultaneously, approaching the focused consciousness of the Sun.Increasingly, Love is our guide rather than fear and guilt.

 

In Truth, the effect of the Chiron Return lies somewhere between these two extremes.Some issues - those that we have fully worked through - we will transcend, moving into a new energetic level of Healing and a new cycle.Others we will have to recapitulate in the next Chiron Cycle, striving for more understanding, higher consciousness pertaining to the issues themselves and deeper Healing of old Wounds.Still others will be deeper Wounds only just uncovered by the previous cycle and representing our next lessons.

 

The Uranus/natal Uranus opposition (half-return) and the Chiron Return work hand in hand to align us with and connect us to the outer planets of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.It can be a spiritual coming-of-age if we are ready.If we are not, then the destructive forces of Pluto will accelerate our decay, seeking to spade us in, so to speak, in preparation for our physical death and rebirth in a new cycle, i.e. a new incarnation.

The Way Forward

PRESENT

(I started composing this entry in November. It will probably be long. I'll break it up.)

IT HAPPENED.

I can hardly believe it, but IT HAPPENED.

Assessment at this point: He's still trying to hang onto the marriage. Not because it's going well, not because I destroyed a marriage that could have been made healthy, and not because he doesn't love me or I don't love him.

And: IT HAPPENED, exactly as I always thought it would have to, exactly as the horoscopes predicted.

Which means: I'M NOT CRAZY. The whole time, I was right. I wasn't crazy!

And this is good. This is all, for the first time in three years, very, very good.

I had agonized over some of this.

And, consider this: nine times out of ten, after a breakup, the other person does not come back to provide answers. Ever.

I can consider myself extremely fortunate on all these accounts.

His attitude is, "I made my bed, and now I have to lie in it." There's not much I can do with that. If a person's stated intention is to remain married, then there's no relationship of any kind that's possible.

Some may elect to have an affair with the guy anyway, hoping to persuade him away from the wife at some point. And there's no doubt it would be possible to do that. All three horoscopes are in agreement: If I chose to do that, I would eventually win.

But the price exacted is terrible. The worst thing you can do with a codependent is encourage him to live any more dishonestly with himself and other people than he already is. If I elected that option, it would take six years, I would get dumped again in the  middle of it and get shattered even, even worse than I've already been, and all three people in the triangle remain in arrested development, or possibly even go backwards.

No one changes. No one develops any new skills. No one learns anything. No one gets better.

I go on unable to learn to be happy in the world the way the world is, all on my own. He goes on absolutely convinced that the point of all relationship is that if anyone anywhere in the northern hemisphere is disappointed by his choices for any reason, he has to make them happy no matter how grindingly, wretchedly miserable this makes him.

(What IS the point of relationship? To be known and loved exactly AS YOU ARE, BY STANDING IN YOUR TRUTH AND BEING WHO YOU ARE.)

He never gets out of this "I have no choice but misery" orientation to life, forever and ever unable to state his own feelings and needs, back himself up, and establish boundaries and limits with other people (and might I add, LIKE other people.) And Rory goes right on with...whatever her problem is.

No, clearly, this scenario should never be allowed to happen. If it is, unhealed childhood brokenness and bad habits just wreck our eventual relationship anyway.

But, boy, this sure could happen. He already asked how I felt about him coming back to club meetings, so he can see me and talk to me. He's trying to use tiny crumbs of a relationship with me to make living in the marriage bearable.

And how is that okay? Who condemns themselves to a miserable fraction of the good, happy, healthy relationship all people want, and that he's dreamed of his whole life, so everyone else doesn't have to adjust to reality? (When, in truth, some of these people have USED him quite a bit, and treated him very poorly.)

But, this is the reality to which I must adjust, so I will. There's no point staying in contact. All we'll do is tear ourselves to pieces.  Or end up in the other scenario, which is the worst possible result.

And, because I worked and worked and studied and studied and struggled and struggled so hard lo, these past three years, now I see all this. Not only see it, but KNOW it in my bones.

What the affair remonstrators like Anne Ortelee do (See Hiring an Astrologer: Avoiding the Quack) is slap your hand and say, "It's bad. Don't do it," just as people do when another person is overweight.

That's not healing. It teaches nothing. It explains nothing. It leaves people torn and confused and lonely and in pain, and it says, "Just forget it and pretend it didn't happen."

And when we do that, we make the same mistake again. We didn't learn. We didn't grow. We didn't change into a healthier version of ourselves, the person we would have been if our parents and childhood had been healthier.

The last three years have been horrible. Horrible. HORRIBLE. But I wouldn't trade them for anything, because of what I learned. Because of what I see. Because of what I know. When you deal correctly with pain in your life, this is how it ends up.

I now know that there really is an overarching purpose to everyone's life. I now know that LIFE IS NOT RANDOM. Interesting...Simon getting sick took away all faith I had in a fair universe where life had any purpose, and Chi leaving me gave it back.

I now know that there was a purpose for everything that happened to me, no matter how senseless and terrible it looked at the time. And I will never look at life the same way again.

I now know that psychology and astrology reinforce each other, and that if you study both, life makes a LOT more sense, and the most painful things have purpose.

I now know that feelings of pain and distress are life's way of telling you, "You're missing something, the discovery of which would change everything for you."

I now know that running in the opposite direction from the pain of addressing something that's not working out in your life, attractive though it looks, is a bad, bad idea. The painful problems we don't work to unlock and solve today, return tomorrow, ten times worse. How much worse do we have to feel before we'll crack a book and read what the experts who study our problem have to say about it? How much worse do we have to feel before we'll do more than just sit with supportive people and complain?

For all those critics who snort, "You've been obsessed with a married man for THREE YEARS!" Yep, I sure was. And I often felt like I was on some kind of deadline, racing and racing to find out something I needed to know before this time in my life rolled around. And I was ALSO obsessed with finding and fixing what I didn't know, what I didn't understand, about where childhood damage was still crippling me in my life.

And I discovered this: When you've worked with pain correctly, you will know, because you no longer have to fight to escape it or fight to ignore it.

When you work with pain correctly, it goes away, and you are freed to live a new life.

And if it's not going away, you are running from or ignoring or missing something, instead of working with it correctly.

One thing's for sure, I didn't ignore ANYTHING these past three years. I split hairs and split hairs and SPLIT hairs. And I learned so much I'm so grateful I know.

Which brings me to an...

If I fuck THIS up, shoot me!

FUTURE...

A note: this post got so long I'm going to have to break it in two. If you know anything about astrology it may be of interest. But I'm starting to know enough to get technical, so if you aren't interested, you may want to skip this post and just wait for the next one.

This post is more the technical, Here's what I  discovered, and the next one is, And here's what that means.


So, if you've stopped by here on any occasion, you know that, in addition to extensive reading about ACoA issues, relationships, and all manner of adult relationship problems stemming from wounding by abusive parenting in childhood, I have also used astrology to help me figure out the issues surrounding this affair situation. It certainly helped point out to me, my own childhood wounding issues I wasn't even aware of.

Of course, one is drawn to the predictive branch of astrology, the claim made by the discipline to be able to forecast future events. I have already accurately done this three times, and I'm just a student; so of course that whets my appetite to discover: How does this actually turn out? 

Almost three years ago, when all this started, I was quite the starry-eyed ingenue. I knew Chi was my Second Guy On The White Horse, and I wanted it to end Happily Ever After. (With him taking care of me in these and those ways, and me taking care of him in those and these ways. Let's hear it! "I love you, you love me, stuck in codependency!") 

I would  have been utterly heartbroken forever and ever more if it didn't turn out that way. In fact, that was how I got onto the astrology in the first place--tripping over the transits that showed him coming back, then leaving, then coming back again, and us having a HORRIBLE life. ("Aauugh! No! NO!")

I'm proud to be able to say now that no matter how Chi ends up choosing to structure his life: If he is wholly and truly at peace with it, I am wholly and truly at peace with it. 

Even if it means I never see him again. 

Which doesn't mean I'm still not curious whether or not this guy is ever going to be happy, with anyone. Or in just giving up on the marriage and staying in the family for the kids and grandkids and just making his peace with it for real (because he sure isn't now.) I'd hate to think he's just going to be miserable forever. Is there any way he's ever going to avert that miserable fate?

Turns out there is, and for those who know anything about relationships and solving relationship problems, it should come as no surprise: Both people need to be emotionally healthy. Or, at least, emotionally healthy enough to work honestly together in good faith. Or, if giving up on a marriage and just accepting it the way it is for the rest of his life, a person has to be emotionally healthy enough to actually make and accept that compromise. 

So the real question is, Can this person ever achieve livable emotional health?

So, here, I putter around the charts hunting for that. 

I mean, look at this. Chi is nearing sixty, and he's been hideously, hideously codependent his whole entire LIFE. We won't even mention the inhumanly low self-esteem issue. 

What are the chances--?

In predictive astrology, the rules go as follows: You have to evaluate "natal promise" in the chart. If the chart you were born with does not contain the potential for you to be, do, or have something, it's not gonna happen, no matter what transits or progressions you get to that chart.

Then comes "progressions."  In "progressions," a planet moves so many degrees for each year of your life. There are different systems for deciding how fast the planets move. Most of them give you essentially the same thing, except for slow-moving planets like Uranus and Pluto. Some astrologers prefer the use of "secondary progressions" for these, and some prefer a method known as "solar arc."

I, however, digress. Progressions are said to reflect (NOT determine!) changes that are happening within the psyche of the person.  Then there are your transits, that is, where planets are now compared to where they are in the chart you were born under. Transits are said to reflect events from an outside source. (Again, reflect, not determine.)

In order for an event to occur, you need at the very least the natal promise for it, AND a strongly impacted progression. (Which makes sense, if you think about it. If you have no acting talent you will never be a movie star, and if you don't have the desire to do so you most likely never will, either.) In the majority of cases, you need a transit as well--at least one outside event, to make the natal promise happen. (If you don't get discovered by an agent, or make yourself known in a modeling career first, or get that first big part, your career on the big screen won't happen.) Makes sense, right?

So now, I'm combing through Chi's chart. At the ripe old age of almost sixty, critically ill with the DISEASE of codependency his whole entire life, is there any natal promise whatsoever, combined with the inner readiness and some outer event, that will push this guy to a.) WORK FOR, and b.) ACHIEVE, wellness??

I've known the relevant transits for a long time. Those are pretty easy to get...you can buy a report of those, whether you have any clue how it was calculated or why. I've had those in my possession for a while now. 

The transits are there for both hard work, great personal growth, and VERY good progress...and for, um, avoiding hard work, zero personal growth, no progress at all, and utter, utter DISASTER in his next relationship, whoever it's with. Unfortunately, reflected in my charts and in Rory's, that utter disaster appears to be with ME, and it appears to begin...oh, in another month or so?

THAT is fucking SCARY.

Especially since EVERYTHING in the transits, from November 2014 right up to October of this year, HAS COME TRUE ALREADY. In my chart, in Chi's chart, and in Rory's.

(Did I ever tell you I predicted the date of Simon's death using astrology? I was one week off.) 

Well...nice to see those good ones, but how the fuck do we get those and not the disaster?? I've been wondering that for ages now, and that was why I started learning on my own. I want to understand this stuff for myself.

I learned enough to figure out how to do progressions. In doing predictive astrology, you start there, since any natal promise in the chart not being activated by a progression is likely to be dormant for the period of time you are looking at. So: What in his progressions holds any promise at all for actual progress recovering from codependency and low self-worth? 

Right now he has the Sun on his natal Saturn, which is of note because his natal Saturn forms the following, which sounds just like Chi:

"Saturn Aspects
Saturn rules our conditioning or the way we were taught and brought up in the world. It is associated with restriction and limitation, but with this it brings structure and meaning to the world and our lives. It reminds us of our boundaries, responsibilities and commitments. It is often associated with a father or authority figures. Saturn's lessons actually help us to grow. In your chart the position of Saturn reveals your limitations, fears and sense of responsibility.

Saturn Opposition Midheaven

This can be a difficult placement, indicating that you feel so lonely and so different from others that it is hard to relate to them. Also you may sometimes feel that there is nothing inside you, that if others could look at you they would see only emptiness. This belief is not based on fact, but it can seem very real when you are feeling unhappy. It indicates that you need a great deal of emotional support from your family. Your mother, especially, and possibly your father as well, may demand a great deal and expect you to live up to very high standards, without giving you very much emotional reinforcement. Even if they do support you, you will not feel the helpful effects as much as others would. One possible effect of this placement is that you will be very active socially, almost as if you could not stand to be by yourself, even though you feel alone when you are with others as well. This is an especially likely effect if your chart has many planets above the horizon. You are trying to escape from your sense of inadequacy through others. However, the only way that you can conquer this feeling is by going inside, confronting yourself and accepting what you are. You prefer to keep your immediate personal surroundings - your room, and, later on, your home - neat, with as few obstacles as possible. Others may think that your tastes are rather stark and ascetic, but you prefer not to have to contend with any more material possessions than necessary.  

Fortunately, anything Saturn can go much, much better with dedication and hard work. All my difficult Saturn aspects have become much better with therapy and the kind of research and thinking I am doing here, and this one is weaker than all of mine, so I have to take this as an indicator that with the right work, progress can be made. The Sun here tends to reflect, from what I've read, a desire to work and manifest results.

Natal promise and a good progression! Whew!
Another one: 

Moon opposite Uranus in the natal chart gives an exciting but unstable home and family life. These and other unusual domestic conditions are outward manifestations of your highly strung and erratic emotional life.
Regardless of what your conscious intent may be, your feelings and reactions control the direction of your life. This is especially so for your close relationships. Your intimate relationships are where this aspect is most noticeable.
Uranus creates emotional distance which makes it difficult to form close bonds with other people. This detachment will cause, or is caused by, your strongly independent and freedom loving nature.
One of your parents, usually your mother, may have reinforced this inborn independent streak. Depending on other aspects and fixed stars, Uranus in your childhood could manifest as a scientific, astrologer, angry, abusive, crazy or absent parent. Whether a good or bad example, they influenced how you relate to people at the emotional level.
An inability to make meaningful and stable relationships is common while you remain unaware of the erratic impact Uranus (please note: Uranus here is a SYMBOL for something, not the actual determinant of the situation. In my opinion, Uranus here symbolizes codependency and low self esteem.) has on your subconscious feelings and reactions. Emotional turmoil, dramatic change and unexpected events can affect your home, family and close relationships.
The key to reducing the unsettling impact of this aspect on your private life is to gain conscious awareness. Massive breakthroughs and personal growth can come through astrology, psychology and medicine.
To enjoy more stability and control over your emotions and reactions, you want to slow down and calm down. The aim is to quieten your impulsive, erratic and unexplainable emotional reactions.
Like so much in your life, compromise is needed to find the right balance between boredom and excitement. You cannot be the mad genius and the caring emotional partner at the same time.

I ask you, does that sound familiar or not? Fortunately, this one apparently responds well to, *ahem*, active WORK in therapy. Two progressions are activating this one: a Jupiter square and a direct hit by Chiron, the wounded healer. Look that up in Greek mythology. This is where "Chi" gets his pseudonym.

Computed by the solar arc method, Chi's North Node (signifying the goals the soul has for this lifetime) is sitting right on Saturn--seems significant to me--putting the solar arc nodal axis right on top of the MC/IC axis. That's a big activation of the natal promise to make some progress, here. And...well, will you look at this? Solar arc Saturn is sitting right on the natal Moon, activating the above Moon opp Uranus, which describes a lot of Chi's issues and good natal promise of making some progress with them. Saturn reflects that a lot of restrictions, trouble, and delay will happen, but if you work with them you can get some major things accomplished.

And, oh, look at this: Solar arc Mercury sitting on Saturn. This also activates Saturn opp Midheaven, reflecting heavy and often depressing thinking that seems to be needed around some serious and challenging mental work. But serious discussion, thinking, and goal-setting can lead to useful outcomes.

So, it would appear that Chi's got the transits, the progressions, and the natal promise to do some good, hard, lasting work on codependency, ACoA issues, and low self-worth THIS YEAR COMING UP.

And let us not forget: Chi has Pluto in 12. Pluto is the planet of deep, scary transformations that require us to confront the deep things we're afraid of. House 12 is the hidden house, the house of self-undoing. Any planet found in 12 will find its influence challenged in the person's life. So, Chi is going to have a very difficult time going within and making changes to parts of himself and influences in his life. However, those with Pluto in 12, should they make that transformation, can end up very deeply wise in the area they initially had difficulties with, and the chart DOES confer the ability to do this if the person will knuckle down and WORK. House 12 is the house of the subconscious, so with Pluto here there's definite potential to heal.

Thank fuck.

I was really beginning to worry.