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By way of a brief aside, he was awfully grumpy yesterday, my lovely astrologer. (And I find it unfailingly touching that he is grateful to be allowed to be). All day. I mean all day. On and off, of course. And I might add that nowhere near as explosively as I the day before.
I rather got the impression that it was baffling him, too. I mean, there is nothing majorly wrong (aside from the usual, which is too laborious and painful to go into here). In fact, he is utterly enthused with his life and vocation just now. If anything, he is generally wishing for more hours in the day: too many projects, too little time.
But he was grumpy, man.
Is THIS how you feel, Sweetheart?
It started when we first sat down to write, it continued through the morning, into the afternoon, it peaked when he was washing up and waned a little once that loathsome task was complete, and picked up again as, children tucked up in bed, we snuggled up to watch a film.
He was about to press “Play” when I urged him to check out his transits.
“Ahaaaaa!” he uttered, snorting somewhat sheepishly.
“Mmm?”
“Mars square Moon, exact at 11pm tonight.”
Snuggling into his chest, I muttered “I’ll keep my head down till then, then.”
My Capricorn Moon
Sitting up in bed this morning, thanking our lucky stars it was the weekend, sipping tea and wincing slightly at the sounds of clamour and chaos ensuing from the four wild monkeys downstairs, we discussed the not-so-pretty points of motherhood. You know, the yuckier stuff. Blood, poo, the whole damn thing.
“There’s bugger all I can do about it but get on with it” was, I decided, to be carved on my gravestone.
He grinned his sometimes rather smug astrologer’s grin at me and declared: “There speaks a Moon in an Earth sign.”
Pragmatism.
Where would I be without it?
Lil' Pluto Dude
My little Pluto dude is a Gemini. He does, in fact, have crazy amounts of Gemini: Sun, Mercury and Venus. It’s a loopy little stellium all opposed and super-charged by Pluto (rising, as I may have mentioned).
Being so utterly Gemini, it’s kind of tricky keeping him on the planet. Out and about, he’s the lagger, looking up at the sky, in his own little world, tripping over the kerb and walking into shop windows. He has scars on his forehead to prove it. At school… well… He’s only five, but already I sense the exasperation of his teachers as they describe their attempts to keep his floating head in the room. We did, in fact, devise a scheme whereby each time he reaches the end of a school-day I ask his teacher whether he managed to focus, to concentrate, or not. Each time she says yes, he gets a sticker on the starchart on the wall above his bed. Each time he has 10 stickers, he gets a reward.
So, today. He’s piled into the car with his three brothers and his surprisingly deep little voice emanates from his pixie face, big blue eyes piercing me from under his mop of straw: “I got a sticker today.” This surprises me, because I’m the one supposed to be handing out the stickers.
“Oh yes,” I reply. “What for?”
I am anticipating a prolonged stint of applied concentration, a task well done, a whole five minutes sitting still…
His little chest is puffed with pride, his face-splitting grin showing all his milk teeth.
“I finished my lunch before they’d got round the school. I was first for pudding and I finished first!”
I didn’t mention his Moon in Taurus, did I? My little tummy on legs.
So, my two and a half-year old cherub (with Pluto rising – you see the tongue in my cheek?) has started playgroup. His intensity is legendary: he has no idea at all about personal space and no respect at all for a conversation that may have been in full flow before he decided he wanted to speak. Of course, there is an element of that in all toddlers, but, being the fourth of four boys, I am naturally aware of the “norm” and, by that token, of the intensity lent this little fella by Pluto rising in his Nativity.
My point is this: a small person starts playgroup and suddenly your household is infected with all the bugs and infections such small people breed. A playgroup is a hothouse for such things. And your nipper hasn’t been exposed to them before, so naturally he has no immunity. So naturally, he catches everything going.
And passes it on.
For me, it started with a bit of a sore throat which became more painful and then less so and now, almost gone, I feel mildly snotty. Not hideous. Not fun, but not hideous.
My lovely astrologer, on the other hand, has been floored. He is, as we speak, snuggled up on the sofa with a quilt and a wheat sack to warm his freezing feet. He is streaming snot (which offends his Virgo no end) and, frankly, finding it tough to maintain a sense of humour.
Why does he have it so much worse than me?
Well. He assures me that by tomorrow he’ll be much better. After all, in the small hours his secondary-progressed Moon opposition Neptune will have passed over.
Astrology. You gotta love it.
So this morning I received an email from my beloved mother. It was by way of response to mine. The original email, from me, was sent yesterday, bemoaning the fact that she simply will not stick to any rules (she has Sun quincunx Pluto) and is happy to side-step me at all costs, in order to get to my children. This latest complaint of mine was that she had sent my son a birthday card at his school – am I the only one to see that as subversive?! Yes, dear reader, we are in the process of attempting to “work out” our relationship after I dared to make a decision about my life that she didn’t like. I, I hope understandably, have put everything on hold until it is sorted out, which means of course that she doesn’t see my children at the moment. After all, how does one carry on a relationship with one’s grandchildren if one will not speak to their mother? Simple logic, it seems to me.
As usual, I digress.
Where does astrology come into this?
Well, this morning, as I say, I received a pretty hideous email – anger, manipulation, threats of death (other people’s, but the implication was at my door)… that kind of stuff.
During the school-run it occurred to me that I might ask my astrologer to glance at what the sky was up to today. So, on our return, we took a look at today’s astrology:
Transits of 22nd May 2009
Here I found that Mars was squaring Pallas in Cancer, thus ruled by the Moon in Taurus in 8th. She, in turn, was squaring Pluto in Capricorn in 4th. (Coincidentally, this Moon in 8th – Pluto in 4th is a facsimile of my own natal Moon trine Pluto). What does it all mean? Well, Mars squaring Pallas in Cancer is clearly tension with the daughter, ruled by the Moon brings the mother into the equation and the Moon in trine aspect to Pluto creates an easy ability to amputate the emotions. Interesting for me, especially, since I told my mother goodbye. Oh, and I mentioned that today’s Moon and my own natal Moon are both in the 8th House of things we give up? And while I’m discussing aspects that already exist in our natal charts corresponding to today’s transits, might I point out the Sun quincunx Pluto that exists in dear Mama’s? And while I’m at it, the Moon trine Pluto alive and well in my own?
These observations led us to look a little more closely at what had been going on when I had sent my original email yesterday afternoon. This is what we found:
Transits of 21st May 2009 at 16:18
I sent my email expressing my anger at my mother at the exact moment that Mars and Moon were in partile conjunction (anger with the mother), both squaring Pallas (tension with the daughter).
Finally, on leaving the school this morning having dropped off three little boys, my friend collapsed on me in tears having just had a godawful morning with her daughter.
Good job I take on board my parents’ assertion that there’s nothing in this astrology lark, isn’t it?
A very simplistic view of life from under the curse of Venus-Pluto as depicted by an entirely novice astrologer. Bear with me. It may make a little sense…
I have Venus rising in Cancer in the 1st House. Not a bad place for Venus, really, you might say. Only trouble is, she’s squaring Pluto, in Virgo in the 4th and, other than a conjunction with Ceres, this is the only major aspect she makes. So the only way I am able to express Venus is through the medium of Pluto. The compulsive and deep, dark, brooding undercurrent of Pluto.
OK. Well. That’s all well and good. Now that I am aware of it, that is. But let me tell you the harrowing tale of one uninitiated in the ways of astrology, living her life through blind compulsion with nothing but a vague and watery sense that things weren’t quite right. In oh, so many ways…
Other than a square to 11th House Chiron, my Cancerian Sun is to all intents and purposes peregrine. This will describe to you the ambience of my relationship with my father: distant and rather painful. Add to this the fact that my Saturn is opposing Neptune: a weak or distant father and bingo! There you have it. My father is a source of angst and pain because I have never felt close to him, or that he would even want that. An unloveable daughter.
As a brief aside, I might mention by way of example that I spent the night before my wedding crying in my parents’ spare bedroom, wondering how in God’s name I was going to sit next to my father in the wedding car the following day for fully half an hour when he didn’t even seem to like me very much. It was rather a source of confusion that he wanted to walk down the aisle with me at all, though I could far more easily understand the concept of his wanting to give me away…
My Moon, by a similar twist of fate, is in Capricorn (and thus in her detriment) in the 8th: early difficulty, something I may have to give up. She trines Pluto (a mother who was able to amputate her feelings to display her displeasure) and Saturn (denoting an easy self-control in me as a result of my relationship with her – duty over emotion). They, in turn, trine one another to create a wonderfully isolating Grand Trine across earth and air to hide inside. The ruler of my 10th House cusp, in Aquarius, is Uranus opposing Chiron, thus the pain of the mother. And the ruler of my 4th House cusp in Leo takes us back to the Sun in Cancer squaring Chiron: the pain of the father. Phew! I just about manage to retain the import of these facts, but the psychological legacy of them is all too evident to me: I am unloveable and have struggled to redress that balance for pretty much my entire life.
So let’s bring Venus, the principle of attraction (and thus also repulsion), into the mix. She represents those things we attract and are attracted to and, it logically follows, those that we are repelled by and that we repel. She is love. And in my Nativity, she is supercharged. As I mentioned before, for me she is also rising which makes her principle of attraction something I innately want to approach the world with. I want to be liked, to fit in, to be popular. I want to be diplomatic, long for peace and harmony. I will naturally avoid over-complication. But, and here is the rub, I am also concerned with appearance: Venus on the Ascendant means that physically, I have a strong need to make myself as attractive and pleasing as possible. And now (drum-roll, please) let us introduce that Lord of the Underworld… Pluto.
Time for a little more personal anecdote, I feel.
It is unlikely you will find someone with more friends who feels lonelier. That’s the first point. It would be hard to over-emphasise how much I would bend over backwards to be liked. Everyone in my path. The postman, the playground mums, the guy delivering logs, the butcher’s wife. You name someone, I’ll have tried to make them like me. It may be time, of course, to redefine the word “friend”. But that is, perhaps, a debate for another time. It feels, looking back on it now, like a form of prostitution, frankly.
Which leads me neatly on to intimate relationships. Never successful. Never. Because that yearning to be liked, loved even, when brought into a potentially romantic relationship, brings with it a sense of desperation, of neediness, a “yes-girl” mentality: you tell me what you want to do, where you want to go… I’ll just follow like your faithful puppy. And which red-blooded male in today’s somewhat skewed society, wants someone who presents no challenge whatsoever? I don’t want to sound like a pushover. After all, I have Mars square Jupiter – I’m very capable of being pretty feisty. But in matters of love, I was a doormat. I should add, too, that to put another spin on my Mars square Jupiter and add fuel to the already pretty desperate Venus-Pluto fire, women with the Mars-Jupiter aspect often fall victim to bed-hopping men. Sigh. Yup. Guilty as charged.
I married a man who was not a serial bed-hopper. I met him at 19, left him at 21, came back to him again and again because he didn’t treat me badly. We married when I was 27 and separated when I was 37, when Pluto crossed my Descendant for the 2nd time, into my 7th House of marriage and, by solar arc, I had Pluto trine Venus 6 days after which I met my astrologer. It will be 120 years before that aspect is repeated, and I had it 6 days before I physically met the man I hope to spend the rest of my life with. And I nearly lost him.
I have always known, as must be evident from the life I have thus far described, that I had a problem relating to men. I did not know why. I was uncomfortable around them, didn’t know how to behave, how to speak to them. Growing up in a strict Catholic family with three sisters (my one brother is so much younger than me that he barely registered as a “man” when we were children) and being sent to an all-girls school did nothing but exacerbate the matter. I realise now that I took courage in alcohol once I reached university and pretty much any “successful” contact I had with the opposite sex was beer-fuelled. I suppose that did not really change, since I have taken refuge in wine since then. Without a drink, I became a wallflower. With a drink, the life and soul. But I digress (albeit to the point).
My husband had become used to the way I behaved around men. I guess the best way of describing it was flirtatious. He knew there was no threat involved but it has only become clear to me since discovering the Venus-Pluto effect how much he struggled with it when we were first together. I had totally forgotten the fights we had during which I found myself baffled by his apparently unfounded and unreasonable jealousy.
So, I had moved in with my astrologer and everything was, initially, tickety-boo. Until I began to see the same pattern. Suddenly, he appeared to me to be controlling, jealous, suspicious. I could not work it out. I feared I had made a desperate mistake. We began to argue in desperation. This was our dream, our one true love, and it looked like falling down around our ears. Until one morning, after an especially bleak, fraught and wretched night, a book about astrological transformation and empowerment landed on our doorstep. I read the piece about Venus-Pluto, subtitled “Love and Survival”. It described my life experience: from the early days of one-way relationships when I felt that I loved and could not be loved in return, that I was seen as a trophy and ran the constant risk of being dumped. It told how I found the fear of not being loved as unconsciously life-threatening, that it sprang from a childhood in which affection was used as a manipulation tool, that I had learned emotional amputation techniques to beat those I loved at their own game. Most importantly for me at that particular time, though, it explained my attitude to men. “Venus-Pluto people are concerned about the impression they make and can sometimes invest enormous energy into being liked. Generally they successfully enrol people into liking them through a kind of relentless charm… long-term partners will learn to identify the anxiety that lies behind the efforts to be loved. Jealousy can plague their early relationships as they feel they are at the mercy of another’s love and cannot control whether it will be given or withheld. These people give intensely of themselves, and there is no way their relationships can be superficial, but at the same time, they draw the emotional energy from others and leave them exhausted.” My poor darling was utterly confused by the mixed messages I appeared to be emitting. With one breath I was telling him he was my world, my life, the reason I was alive and with the next I appeared to be attempting to seduce a shopkeeper.
With awareness comes release.
Might I recommend two courses of action, should you find yourself in a similar boat? 1) If you have a good level of astrological proficiency, try Donna Cunningham’s Healing Pluto Problems and 2) Ask a good astrologer for help.
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