What did the eclipse bring you?

Yes, I realize I'm writing an Astro-Diary. A little love life, a dash of daily routine, a helping of philosophical confusion. And some pictures of the city, the city, the city.

The planets are poetic for me. The metaphors resonate with me. And the technology boggles my mind. Even Blogger. This evening I tried to add something to my template and just couldn't succeed...

So here I am in my noisy neighborhood, blogging for who reads.

Searching mind for astrological tidbit and coming up with nothing. I've worked hard today on other things.... the positions of the planets will have to catch up with me tomorrow. Perhaps this malaise is post-eclipse malaise? A weary-mind after that intense energy? Maybe. What is needed to get in touch with the self, with Spirit? Meditation, yes. Prayer, yes. A quiet room, yes.

And it snowed today. Snowed and snowed and snowed. Perhaps that was also post-eclipse response, New York City style. Just cover everything, just dampen everything, just slush it all up, just make it so mud-wonderful, puddle-luscious (apologies to e.e. cummings)...

What did the eclipse bring you?

Snow

No post today (yet)... just snow.

Love Squared

There was a moment today when I suddenly felt acutely lonely. You see, I have a special person in my life but our relationship is long distance in more ways than one: I have a Venus Saturn square. He has a Venus Saturn opposition. And that's just part of the story.

At the moment neither of us is doing our "negative" Venus (love/value) Saturn (restriction/fear) . We are being sweet and caring and attentive. I feel lucky and blessed to have him (our Jupiters are conjunct). But we also have squares. Squares and squares and squares. This makes for some tension. An up side to this is that the squares are in cardinal signs. So we can move through it.

But sometimes the astrology doesn't explain it all. There is something that happens between people that goes beyond human interpretation. Or understanding. It's mystery. (It's the High Priestess of the Tarot:)

Some connections, some spirits must meet up, God knows why.

I was on the phone this morning with a friend and she said "squares ARE a connection."

At the time I didn't reconze the depth of what she said, how true it was.

So the hard aspects can bring people together just as the softer aspects do. But will these aspects keep them together...

How I Love Thee Sun Venus

Sun Venus conjunct is my favorite "personal" aspect. What I mean is this: I drawn to folk who have this configuration in their birth charts and recently looked at the charts of two ex-boyfriends and they both had it! (Although in different signs and houses.)

Now a fellow astrologer I respect (never met him though) says he doesn't like this aspect. He also has it in his chart. He says his Sun burns up that Venus. And I'd heard something similar before.

Well, I can't and won't dispute how it feels for him.

But for me it's a magnetic attraction. I'm pulled in. That Sun Venus creates a cloud of loveliness around the person.

My meditation instructor also has this aspect in his chart, in Aries in the Eighth House. From the moment I met him, I wanted to be his friend. His manner was so warm and welcoming. And so real. And I suppose my Moon Pluto conjunction is always comfy with Eighth House people.

To be continued...

Sexy Saturn

The Ninth House bores me. I have Saturn there. Travel? I'm a Cancerian homebody. Foreign culture? Okay sure, that's fine. I have friends from around the world. Religion, God? Yeah, I'm with you there. I think about God a lot. Philosophy of life? Okay. But my Saturn is in Taurus. I get kind of fixed. Fixated. Higher education? I have my MFA. Publishing? Anyone who knows me knows I do another kind of writing and am frustrating by publishing. I feel restricted, to say the least. I did publish when I first graduated then I stopped trying for some years. Now I am trying again. It's slow going. Thanks Saturn.

Saturn is the teacher. Saturn is serious. Saturn is authority (thus, the police officer posted above).

Saturn, they say, is your work. Saturn, they say, makes you work. Some even say there will be reward for all this work. IF you work. If you learn your lesson. Saturn, dear Saturn, always has a lesson.

My astrologer in Iowa (yes, astrologers need other astrologers!) tells me that Saturn does not deny you (I can hear her voice saying this) but it does delay.

And it's a funny little karma (karma also is Saturn): this thing I long for so much, this thing I value (Venus) squares my Saturn (restriction) in the 9th house of publishing.

Saturn is not sexy. Pluto is, hell yes. Maybe even Uranus with its weird tastes and sudden excitements. Neptune while not so sexy is larger than life, supersize spirituality, illusion and delusion.

But Saturn? No. Not sexy.

Pluto and Change

In response to Kingsley who commented on an earlier Pluto post:

My Pluto square is done. Pluto square Pluto, that is. It was 1st House (natal) vs. 4th House (transiting). What WASN'T going to change with those two houses in square? Two houses so much about the self and its beginnings. And again, it was change or...

No. There was no other option.

Since my Moon is joined to my Pluto in my birth chart, they work as a unit. Can't separate them. I guess every conjunction need be judged on its own, but as for mine... Moon and Pluto are fused together. Memories/emotions/moods/mother/security.... all of that is married to Pluto. To transformation and resurrection. To power, desire, and death. Oy.

My mother died when I was 26. I've never looked at the Pluto transits from the time, but it would surprise me if Pluto wasn't doing something fierce then...

What doesn't, who doesn't, come back from the dead? Pluto People know the answer to this...

Neptune Goggles

I was emailing with a friend today and she described herself as an intuitve astrologer, not so much "into the numbers."

I knew exactly what she meant because I feel the same way. For me, astrology (and working with someones natal chart) is mystery work, an intuitive art, an art of storytelling, your story. And that's just the beginning...

This blog is in its Aries, in its infancy. Still searching for my true subject(s) here, my true purpose, my true North.

So with my North Node in Pisces in the Sixth House (which is Virgo's house), I want my blog to reflect daily concerns and I want it to flow, to feel loose and swim.

More Pisces, less Virgo.

Less discerning and analyzing.

More.... fish.

And about the Mars Pluto aspect I was writing about the other day: it's so much easier to understand someone else's chart, isn't it? It's like giving myself a Tarot reading. My hopes and wishes (I do have a stellium in Cancer in the 11th) get in the way. Blindspots. Can't see.

And my chart is fairly Neptunian (squares and an opposition to Neptune, Pisces descendent, Venus in the 12th. You get the picture. Or maybe you don't because it's Neptune).

But then my Virgo points and planets scoop me up and bring me back to the details.

The picture above was taken in New York City, near Penn Station. I like it for Neptune thoughts because it's out of focus...

Intuition IS focus though, isn't it...