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He awoke with determination yesterday morning, my lovely astrologer.
“Today is the day we rectify your chart. I need to know where your Ascendant is.”
And of course, weekends are generally the only time for any ‘recreational’ astrology. The rest of the working week is… well… working.
So we huddled around his computer and came up with a list of about 10 events in my life of great significance. Those of you familiar with the process probably know that this is not, as a matter of course, a particularly comfortable experience. Those dates work best if they were the cause of some discomfort or distress to you. Naturally, though, the births of your children are likely to have a large impact on you, too. It’s not all bad.
He worked his magic on his software, looking at dates, angles and progressions; occasionally muttering “We’re about a year out”, or “Another few degrees or so…” and fiddling with dates and times.
It took some time, I can tell you. It is not a quick process (or I guess he might have done it before now…); rather somewhat involved, fiddly, occasionally exasperating. None of this was aided by the fact that I have possibly the worst memory in the history of humankind, especially for dates. But some things you just don’t forget, eh? The date of your marriage, your firstborn, your divorce…
The pointers that he had finally got it spot on included the following:
- May of 1989 when, as a result of the death of my grandfather, my family upped sticks and left suburban London for a tiny village in the South-East of England. By Solar Arc, Midheaven was quincunx Uranus: “A sudden turn of destiny, big upsets”.
- December of 1991, the midst of one of the hardest years of my life (a year spent studying abroad in hostile situations, due to two separate but equally vitriolic instances of victimisation). By Solar Arc, my Ascendant was semi-square my Midheaven: “Inhibitions or suffering caused through the environment or others”.
- August of 1998, when my ex-husband and I were married. By Solar Arc, my Ascendant was conjunct Saturn: demonstration to the world that I was ‘growing up’ and doing the ‘mature and responsible’ thing. Time to ‘get serious’ about life.
- March of 2000, my first son was born. By Solar Arc, Moon conjunct my Midheaven: motherhood was born.
These were the most noteworthy dates until we got to the final one. As ever, he saved the best till last. August 2008, when we finally met, by Solar Arc Pluto trined Venus. If that doesn’t intensify the love, what does? It takes Pluto 360 years to traverse the zodiac by Solar Arc (which has nothing to do with rectification – I mention it merely as an aside). You get one trine every 120 years. In other words, you may never get one. And there it was, by Solar Arc, the day we met.
Worth rectifying it, wasn’t it?
Alice and Jeremy
My head is spinning somewhat. Under our roof, the search for detail, that detail which provides the colour and shading for the outline that the common or garden Nativity provides, continues and is ever-dizzying. I mean, of course, that the study of the asteroids is ongoing and all-consuming.
Today he tells me I have a Cazimi Cora in Cancer. Cora is an alternate name for the Greek Goddess Persephone, daughter of Demeter. (Also known, of course, as Proserpina and Ceres.) She is the embodiment of the Earth’s fertility, so it should be no great surprise that I have four children and only stopped because I “had to”.
More importantly, however, she was abducted by Hades, Lord of the Underworld and separated from her mother. (Cazimi Cora in Cancer, ruled by the Moon which, coincidentally, I have in the 8th so something I have to give up?) Wikipedia, I might mention, also has this to add: “This myth also can be interpreted as an allegory of ancient Greek marriage rituals. The Classical Greeks felt that marriage was a sort of abduction of the bride by the groom from the bride’s family, and this myth may have explained the origins of the marriage ritual.“
I have previously mentioned the fact that Jupiter is transiting my natal Odysseus, Odysseus being exile, ex-patriate, feeling rootless or homeless, a stranger in a strange land, being sent away from “home”. I have mentioned that I am exiled from my family.
And here we have the illuminating piece of the puzzle that has enabled my family to project onto my lovely astrologer the personification of Hades (and those of you who know him will be laughing aloud by now). No protestation can dissuade them – indeed any protestation appears to be protesting too much. I have been abducted by the evil Lord of the Underworld. So here we are, Persephone and Hades (or Proserpina and Pluto), in exile.
And again the cry goes up: Nothing in this astrology lark, is there?
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.
My lovely astrologer has an awful lot of Virgo, you know. He likes things clean, tidy, unsullied and definitely, most definitely germ-free. My youngest son, for example, likes to suck the square, muslin comforter he calls his goggy until it’s really quite gross by anyone’s standards. Should he approach my lovely astrologer brandishing it before him, you can imagine he might end up risking life and limb through moving traffic backing away from it.
Number 3 son, on the other hand, is utterly Plutonic. The prettiest of the four boys, his mini-bloke attributes are already very much in attendance. Just now, for instance, as my lovely astrologer was nearing the kitchen, this 5 year-old son of Hades mooched past him, hands in his pockets, and muttered:
“I need a poo, Jerm.” (Ironic that he shortens Jeremy to ‘Jerm’, isn’t it?)
I collapsed into fits of giggles. We both did. As Jeremy responded “Well, thanks for telling me.” We discussed the too-much-information side of things before my lovely astrologer headed back out into the hall.
… where he encountered said Pluto-child mooching back. With barely a tilt of his head, he stated:
“I don’t think the poo’s coming out.”
Pluto in Sagittarius, and rising: Too. Much. Information. Dude.
My curiosity has been tweaked of late as to where the correspondences for food intolerances and allergies lie. I wanted to write a “quick post” on this subject, but it appears to be sucking me ever deeper into the world of eating disorders, anaemia, malnutrition… I suspect that there is a lot more research and digging around to be done here and, having Hygeia on the astrologer’s degree of 26° Leo, it is perhaps not surprising that I am being drawn in so!
I am, I might add, struggling to find the words I need, since Mercury squaring Neptune is fogging my brain. I sit here, alongside my lovely astrologer, and he admits to me he is having just the same problem (but let’s not forget there’s nothing in this astrology lark 
)
So, I shall attempt to keep this first foray into such matters short and sweet.
My astrologer and I both have problems with wheat, to varying degrees and for different reasons. Neither of us, thankfully, suffers from an allergy, simply an intolerance, but that is irritating enough on a niggly daily basis. (I might add that my third son suffers from a dairy intolerance and I shall be looking into that at a later date).
In my efforts to find a common denominator in the astrological configurations of food-allergy sufferers, I have looked at a fairly exhaustive number of charts, taking into account most particularly what Ceres is up to: what aspects she makes most commonly to which planets. The biggest co-conspirators so far appear to be Neptune – dissolving the issue; Pluto – supercharging it; Saturn – restricting things and Mars and Uranus – giving it too much oomph and sudden impetus (think nuts and anaphylactic shock).
But, for now, back to wheat.
I started, naturally, with my chart and my astrologer’s. Both of us have aspects from Ceres to Pluto (he a conjunction, I a square) and Neptune (he a sextile, I a quincunx), while he also has a square to Mars and I a semi-sextile to Saturn.
Looking, then, at known and celebrated coeliac sufferers, I took what I already surmised from the above and applied that information to their Nativities. Neptune is the unifying factor, with barely a single case being unaspected to him. Following a close second is Pluto. I shall list, for your persusal, a few examples:
- Jim Carrey: Ceres opposition Neptune and trine Pluto
- Jude Law: Ceres semi-sextile Neptune and contra-parallel Pluto
- Amanda Donohoe: Ceres trine Neptune and sextile Pluto
- Kelis (actually a nut-allergy sufferer): Ceres trine Neptune and opposition Pluto
Ceres in Taurus appears to be another contributing factor. Consider these examples:
- Jim Carrey (again) with Ceres in Taurus, and the above configurations
- Rachel Weisz: Ceres in Taurus and quincunx Neptune
- Scarlett Johansson: Ceres in Taurus and sesqui-quadrate Neptune
- Bill Clinton (asthmatic): Ceres in Taurus and trine Neptune
- Terence Stamp: Ceres in Taurus and trine Neptune
There are other considerations as well, of course, mostly involving aspects to Saturn, Mars or Uranus, but they simply appear to add weight to the issue, perhaps even bringing other intolerances or allergies in to play alongside the wheat problem. Juliette Lewis, for example, has Ceres conjunct Neptune, trine Mars and semi-square Uranus. Goldie Hawn has a peregrine Neptune and Ceres opposition Uranus and trine Pluto. Terence Stamp, renowned for his regimented diet and coeliac trouble, has Ceres in Taurus, trine Neptune, conjunct Uranus and quincunx Saturn – the whole shebang!
These things can all be common factors, incidentally, in the suffering of the rather widely-spread umbrella term of IBS.
Should you find yourself with a combination of these indicators, I am not for a minute suggesting that you will find yourself in the grips of a full-blown wheat allergy. I would simply suggest that it is something to be wary of as you may find that such a thing might be triggered by a tricky transit, arc or direction. My astrologer and I, for example, discovered to our surprise and mirth this afternoon that his problems were triggered by his Pluto square in 2004. This he worked out just after I had mentioned that mine came into effect some time after the birth of my fourth son. I went to a homeopathic doctor to ask why I was so tired: was I being stupid and just exhausted because I had four children under 7 years old?? She did various tests on me and came up with a wheat intolerance. When we looked at my transits for that period of 2007, what should we find? Yup. My very own Pluto square.
Hah! Nothing in it, eh?
For those that might be interested, and as long as you have no problem with eggs, might I offer you here my own recipe for wheat-free bread?
Wheat-Free Bread
I use a bread machine for this, for ease and convenience, but it can be made with pretty good results in the conventional manner.
Ingredients:
500g wheat-free flour. You can buy ready-mixed flour, but I mix my own, using roughly equal quantities of any three of the following:
gram (chick-pea) flour
rice flour
potato flour
buckwheat flour
tapioca flour
soya flour
[Note: I find that a base of gram and rice flour with a third type from any of the rest works best)
1 tsp xanthan gum (optional, but performs the gluten-like action of binding the bread together)
2 tsp dried yeast
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 egg
2 x 250ml warm water
In a bread machine:
- Put in the 2 tsp yeast, 2 tsp sugar and 250ml of warm water. Allow the yeast to activate while you prepare the rest.
- Measure out 500g wheat-free flour and add to it the salt and xanthan gum.
- When the yeast is activated and bubbling up, add the egg to the yeast mixture.
- Add the flour mixture to the bread pan, along with the other 250 ml warm water. Mix well and bake on an ordinary loaf program.
- Tastes best toasted.
Bon appetit!
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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