I am Pisces Rising: Narrative 2

ascendant, astrologer, astrology, astrology lesson, beginner, just for fun, learning astrology, zodiac

soap-bubble-824558_1920 Today I had a grilled cheese and jam sandwich for lunch and I sat down at a table outside the Daley Center. An older gentleman sat at my table. I have never met him before, but he seemed so kind and gentle; I probably invited him to sit down with my stare. That happens a lot.

This is why I like arriving to work early when I can, and why I like having no where to be at particular moments. The magic of being alive.

And I mean that he was genuinely kind and gentle, because that is the vibe he gave.

He had acromegaly and periodontal disease, but also the gentlest blue eyes. Some people are so beautiful in their being that it is a shame they must be encased in bodies.

He made chitchat, but I was about to head off to work. I felt bad walking away, but I genuinely had to go. I can tell when someone is good. Or when they are not. Or when they are hurting. It used to be that I wouldn’t trust myself, because other people only seem to see people with their eyes and hear them with their ears.

People like that just float to me, it seems. As do children, as do dogs and cats. People just either expect me to be gentle, or they think I’m a ghost. Or maybe they think I am a dog or a cat, or a child, or least something like a pet.

And sometimes, people are confused when they get to know me. No one knows my true motivation. Not even me.

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I am Sagittarius Sun: Narrative 1

astrologer, astrology, astrology lesson, horoscope, learning astrology, natal astrology, zodiac

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This is the first in an experiment to make astrology understood through narrative.

I hated school, but I loved college. I have been to five now, and now, in my mid-thirties, I am in graduate school studying to be a lawyer. I have studied literature, fine art, writing, ceramics, acting, psychology, math, and engineering. I like it all. I have only now ever committed to one, and largely because it allows me to read, to change rules, and to study a vast majority of things.

Even though this is my newest incarnation, I am still very much the same in some respects: I hate law school. I hate being in the same class with the same people every day. I hate the cultural homogeneity. I hate sitting in a room with people hiding behind their laptops, with one person telling us rule after rule after rule, with the expectation that we would simply absorb it without experiencing it. I hate the feeling that I am trapped. I hate schedules. I hate attendance requirements. I hate the sacred cows.

It is my fault, in a way: I chose perhaps the most culturally suburbanite law school in Chicago. Most of my classmates are white and middle class, many of them are K-JD, meaning that they haven’t taken a significant break between college and law school to do anything meaningful or interesting. Sure, many of them have been clerks or paralegals, but few have just done something to indulge curiosity. I fear that perhaps they have none, because they certainly hate hearing different points of view in class. I may be harsh; I am prone to thinking people are either this or that. But to fall in line, to sit silently behind a laptop in class all day, shopping and gossiping about people who are different from me: is this what a Jesuit education actually means, to be afraid to live?

I said on my essay that I was raised Catholic. This is true. I was raised by an atheist and a person addicted to religion, and Catholicism was her spirit of choice. I have had a long road shedding the religion of origin; I always thought that if I were born a man, I would have become a priest. And then later defrocked for heresy or sex or hopefully both, but I would have gone to the seminary. I have finally shed the vestiges of the old religion. I have tried on others — so many others — and now, I am a church unto myself, a walking church, and this is the right thing to do. Every religious idea I have, whenever I have it, is the right thing to do or think.

I vaguely knew what I was jumping into when I first moved to Chicago, believing this to be the true American City. It is segregated. It is rife with suburbs. It is rife with alderman who run their neighborhoods like fiefdoms. But is is the center of trade for much of the country, the urban dead-center of it all, and so…American. So sickly American. So tragically American. So wonderfully American.

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Trying Something New: Astrology Through Narrative

astrology, astrology lesson, just for fun, special issues in astrology

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In a way, inspired by Fernanda, I’m going to try something new: I am going to teach astrology through memoir. First, my second year of law school is turning out to be a motherfucker of a year, and like most motherfuckers, it is an infuriating and exhilarating mix of stress, excitement, joy, and feeling inadequate. I am on a journal. I am taking a full course load. I am a law clerk for a nice, small law firm that covers everything and is run by partners who are not in law for the money. I have some side gigs, too. I have some nice personal developments. I am, however, short on time and discipline to indulge my creativity or do any writing, much less comedy, which I miss terribly. I am short on funds as a student, and from growing up poor, I knew that I could make up for that by giving up time, but I don’t have that either. I will not be baking my own bread or making my own soap any time soon.

Second, astrology is experienced by people, and it reflects experience. Of course, not everything that happens in one’s life is a pure expression of any astrological aspect or circumstance, but sometimes, some stories just seem to crystallize what I want to say, and could better convey the lesson than what I would normally write.

So I am going to try to illustrate astrology through memoir, and when I get comfortable, through fiction. While it can be difficult to write about a person in just one dimension, I think it is possible to create a story to illustrate one facet of their overall make up.

Insane Little Ways to Discover a Person’s Sun Sign

astrologer, astrology, astrology lesson, beginner, horoscope, just for fun, learning astrology

I usually don’t do gimmicky astrology on my site. The truth is that I’ve become more fond of it in my old age because I like the little ways that astrology applies. Yes, you can buy gifts by a person’s Venus sign, or make a person a superb dinner based on their Moon sign. Call me a Sagittarius, but I think that there is no point in studying anything if you must take it seriously all the time…much to my law professors’ collective chagrin.

This is pretty much what I did in 1L.

But if you think about it, most astrologers are first introduced to the art through newspaper horoscopes and lighthearted articles. I think perhaps the best thing astrologers can do is to write well no matter what they write, because in the end, I’m really tired of looking at my Facebook feed and seeing pictures that list Capricorn as a hot and sensuous lover.

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Astrological Google Searches III

8th house, astrology, astrology lesson, beginner, mars, synastry, Venus

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If I were really good at SEO, I would actually make separate blog posts based on the highest incoming searches to the website. After all, this is my hustle, right? Well, the chase-model of SEO doesn’t really work, and sometimes, some things just don’t merit their own post.

But sometimes all you really want is a quick answer, especially if you’re just another gal in a big city trying to make a name for herself, or you simply have a short attention span. Six months ago, I published quick answers to keywords that brought folks to my site. I do that again today. So, without further adieu, quick answers to popular search items that I haven’t already written about:

Venus in 8th House Synastry: This placement means that the Venus person feels a desire to be intimate with the 8th House person. Not necessarily sexual or even romantic, but that they desire to join with the the other person in some sort of intimacy that is bigger than the two of them by themselves. For example, adolescent female best friendships can often seem like a Venus in 8th House thing because of the level of intimacy and entanglement between two people that their individual egos die and they are reborn into a new unit. If you have ever watched My So-Called Life then you know what I mean. It is not uncommon for a person who is changing to seek out different people to hang out with who reflect this change and the dying of the old self. Hence, in a romantic relationship, the Venus person may be changing, and the 8th house person may be representative of this new phase of life. Since the 8th house also rules rebirth, it is possible that there is karma between the persons involved, and that they may have known each other in a previous life or knew each other well in some other incarnation in this one and have come together because now, they seem to be going the same way which may be a departure from where they both were when they first knew each other.

Moon in 8th House Synastry: Here, the expression of the needs and primal fears of the Moon person are transformed by the relationship with the 8th House person. in a way, this is a Beauty and the Beast aspect, because the 8th House person will both fulfill a need for intimacy and trigger a primal fear in the Moon person. The Moon person is more likely to be the one to nurture and grow the relationship. This is because the Moon person has a psychic insight into the 8th House person who may welcome the Moon like someone they have always known, and it may be so because they knew each other in a previous incarnation. Yes: 8th house tends to deal with unfinished business that needs to get done in this life (the 12th house is the stuff you manage to always sweep under the rug or die trying).

Outer planets in partner’s 2nd House: I personally do not put a lot of stock in outer planets in synastry since they are generational planets and are more impersonal. In the year you were born, and roughly in that ballpark, everyone in your peer group would have outer planets in that someone’s 2nd house or whatever house, so the 2nd house person will derive a sense of personal security or personal lack of possessions or security in their material world when it comes to the entire generation. If the partners are in the same generation, nothing special happens in synastry as far as outer planets go, even if appear in the preceding or following house. It just means the group of slighter older or slighter younger people have X effect on them.

BUT: there is an exception. But it’s not that dramatic and I didn’t really have to bold it. The exception in when the partners are of different generations. Age-gap relationships tend to be heavily karmic, and often, the people involved have known each other over the course of many lifetimes and keep coming back to each other, even though the cycles of death and rebirth have made them become born in this lifetime in different years. But even still, this really only affects semi-outer planets like Saturn. What difference it will make for the 2nd house person is that they will react to members of the entire generation of outer planets in the same way, and that will inevitably color the age-gap relationship. So, if your outer planets are in your partner’s second house, but his outer planets are in entirely different places, the partner will either feel financially responsible for the the outer planet person’s generation or derive some sort of pleasure out of what material things that generation represents, like their music.

Natal conjunctions to Saturn get better after 30: Not necessarily. If you came out of your Saturn return better and wiser, you know how to work with the positive aspects of conjunctions to Saturn, namely persevering in whatever the other planet represents, delaying gratification, maintaining focus, and learning to be patient when you don’t get whatever that planet conjuncting Saturn represents right away.

No friends astrology: Ah, now this one is interesting! Do you mean that you have no friends who are astrologers, or that you have no friends and want to know why? Well, I if you have no friends then you definitely have no friends who are astrologers. Perhaps this one merit its own post.

Vertex Synastry: Okay, this one merits its own post, too. But overall, if someone’s planet conjuncts or opposes your vertex, there is a fatedness about the meeting, or it at least feeling like you were destined to meet each other, for better or for worse. They may have something to teach you related to the nature of the planet involved. This is often activated in a long-term relationship, mutually, as in one partner’s planet aspects the other’s vertex in both charts, and it can be any planet, though ideally for romance, Mars and Venus should be activated, and it doesn’t matter the gender of the people involved. However, with that being said, I have noticed that when only one person’s Vertex is aspected by conjunction or opposition in synastry, that person is more in love with or needs the other person more, even if it doesn’t appear that way.

Trines to the Vertex are nice, but I don’t count them as factors bringing people together. They don’t motivate. Squares just irritate. Sextiles aren’t strong enough to reinforce attraction.

Predictive Synastry: All synastry is predictive. It can tell you how two people may potential react to other and interact. Once they get to know each other, it ceases to be predictive.

4th quadrant emphasis: In a nutshell, this person doesn’t need anyone and doesn’t give a fuck because it has important shit to do. Well, its not really entirely like that, but it is the Eastern Hemisphere that is focused on the self, and it is in the Southern Hemisphere which is focused on things that come to the attention of the world at large. A person with a 4th quadrant emphasis tends to want to make big things, even if they aren’t appreciated (12th house emphasis) and don’t want to rely on anyone else to make it happen. They’re not worried about pleasing people. What pleases people and what they actually need may not be the same thing, and these people understand it. For example, we need waste water management, but no, it doesn’t please people to think about or deal with poo water. These people may be less inclined to get married or to be a supportive partner, though they could use supportive people in their lives.

I’ll add some more soon.

21 Worst Case Scenarios in Your Partner’s Astrological Chart

astrology, astrology lesson, chart synthesis, just for fun, learning astrology, natal astrology, natal chart, neptune, neptune aspects, saturn, special issues in astrology, synastry, Venus, zodiac

Some people are like that.

Sometimes I would get a call in the early morning from friends of mine who have gone out, met a guy, and wanted to know right away if he’s a good catch. Usually, I think that anyone you meet at a bar at 2 a.m. is NOT a good catch, so I was already thinking no… before yawning and asking why. But I get it, and when you have an astrologer friend, and you are seriously looking for that special someone, you want to use whatever you have to cut to the chase and find out if you should give him your number or go home and sleep the cocktails off.

However, this is not really a good way to determine if you are compatible with someone you just met. The best way to do that is simply talk to them.

There is no one awesome chart. Now, I do have some charts of men whom I would never, ever recommend to any woman I know based on their chart alone, but that is a rare thing. Every chart is a culmination of things. They are holistic and interpersonal compatibility and maturity always shows how a certain aspect in one chart will manifest in a relationship.

Now, let me preface this by saying that just because one or two of these appear in the chart doesn’t mean that you should break up with your partner. You may have one or two in your chart. I have a couple of these myself. We all have our hang-ups and issues, and we learn to work on them through our relationships. This is not an exhaustive list, and some of these are worse than others.

But still, here are a list of aspects and planetary placements and the worst manifestations that could mean someone is not a good catch. I have rarely seen these aspects actually manifest into the worst possible scenarios, but just for fun, here they are:

The worst case scenarios:

Mars conjunct, opposite, or square the Sun. Everything is a competition, and to them, everyone is a competitor, even their spouses and children. It is their way or the highway, and they are impatient. It takes a long time for them to cultivate patience. They are aggressive and sometimes seethe with it like a guard dog. This is especially true if Mars and the Sun are in the cardinal signs or Scorpio. They have a tendency to perceive an attack where there is none, and can be especially protective of their partner when there is no need for it. Better warn Grandpa not to hug you in front of this one. Actually, they would make a much better guard dog than a romantic partner. There is a reason why everyone tells you to put that one on a leash.

Mars conjunct, opposite, or square Moon. Temper, temper! They will wish you away into the cornfield. These people have difficulty controlling their emotions and taking responsibility for them. They may be emotionally immature and have problems with women, and they especially have problems with strong and confident women. They have difficulty nurturing others and lose their patience with children and those who depend on them. This is the kind of person who flushes their goldfish down the toilet because they hate cleaning the tank and the goldfish is grateful for it.

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Cowardice in the Chart: Mars in Aspect to Saturn or Chiron

aspects, astrology, astrology lesson, beginner, learning astrology, mars, retrogrades

But vanilla is still tasty, right?

And let me qualify the title by explaining that I do not believe in an uncontrollable destiny, or that people have fate and no free will. But, astrologically speaking, the world isn’t full of would-be rock stars whom everyone is too stupid to recognize. Not every person is born with an insatiable hunger, raw talent, and the luck or circumstances to become wildly successful. Not everyone is wild stallion meant to forge a new path. Not every person who has potential will fulfill it. The world is full of people who are average, no matter how their social media looks, no matter what they were told in grade school. Not everyone is driven to greatness. Most will not go for the brass ring. Fewer still will keep going after they have reached up and failed to grasp it.

Cosmically, this is fine. There is no need to have anxiety over how much we lack fame and fortune. Greatness and recognition are two different things, though we often confuse the two. In fact, the people who will have the most impact on the world, for better or for worse, are not celebrities. No one ever heard of the Koch brothers until 2008, even though they have been fueling American conservatives with money for decades. Most people didn’t know who Elon Musk was until Tesla Motors hit the news; he co-founded Paypal. Most people don’t know the name of one scientist who has helped to sequence the human genome. On the other hand, we have celebutantes who are famous for doing fuck-all.

But not everyone will sequence the human genome, or find the cure for cancer. Some of us will do a kind thing that really helps someone turn their life around, or is instrumental in saving the life of others. Perhaps it is part of someone’s purpose to be born and die so their organs can be donated and allow someone else to live. We are all on earth to do many things, and many of those things fulfill us, and the only two things that get in our way is ourselves and other people.

It can be difficult to tell from a natal chart whether or not a person is living up to their potential. Even if you look at a lifetime of progressions and transits, it can be hard to tell if a person seized the day. Planets on the Aries Points, planets conjunct the Midheaven and in the 10th house may mean someone more easily ends up in the public eye for whatever that planet represents, whether they like it or not. Fame is not actualization, and it is not living up to one’s soul potential. However, there are a few indicators or whether or not a person has both the motivation and the courage to realize as an individual as well as the perseverance to keep moving toward their individual fulfillment.

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FireBrand Bernie Sanders: Life Stages and Astrological Expression

astrology, astrology lesson, chart synthesis, learning astrology, natal astrology, returns, saturn

Bernie Sanders has a Virgo Sun, Scorpio Rising, and Virgo Midheaven. Why then, does he come on the scene without pretense, afraid of chafing no one, with the energy of a child?

At 74 years old, Bernie Sanders is expressing his Aries Moon, conjunct Mars and opposite Venus.

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The first part of the persona you will meet when reading a chart or meeting a person in the flesh is the ascendant. This is how they want to appear, and moreover, how they think they should appear, regardless of their sun or moon. A person usually expresses their ascendant when very young, and this is how the people at their origin tend to view them; often, when a person matures, they come to express the other parts of their psyche, most notably the sun. If someone tuts and tells them that they have changed, and says so disparagingly, what they mean is that they were more comfortable with the person expressing their ascendant and not their sun, which is a truer, more integral part of them that has always been there. The information received from living through the ascendant feeds the sun expression, and as time goes on, people tend to express their sun more; by the time they have reached middle adulthood, usually after the first Saturn return between the ages of 28-30, they are often in sun mode. By the end of the second Saturn return, between the ages of 56-60, the person is actually expressing their moon more.

Why is that though?

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Venus and Poverty

astrology, astrology lesson, counseling, learning astrology, natal astrology, natal chart, special issues in astrology

Venus, the goddess of love, pleasure, and comfort, when afflicted, rules deprivation, poverty, and discomfort. Jupiter handles luck, windfalls, and things that come easy, but Venus is the planet that rules how one attains money and what creature comforts one needs in life. She is the natural ruler of the 2nd house of possessions and the 7th house of partnerships, which are both related to having money. The 2nd house may be obviously connected, but the 7th house shows us that there are riches in relationships. Yet, depending on what is going on with either house, how rich a person will be does actually depend on how they relate to money and whom they choose to partner with.

People who grow up poor are so diverse, and all too often come from places in which many people are poor, that there is no single astrological indicator of poverty. It is entirely possible that a person grows up poor but has either little knowledge or belief that they are poor, or for some other reason, it has been less of a struggle for them. Poverty is relative to the culture and country in which a person lives: a poor person in America can have more than a poor person in Mexico. However, both people have to navigate different cultures and different governments in order to get what they need. It is also possible that a child lives in poverty for any number of reasons, and those reasons can show up in the chart. However, if you take a look at the various charts of siblings who all grew up in the same home in poverty at the same time, there is a diversity in how they relate to or understand their poverty. Some of those kids are more able to overcome the poverty than others. They may find someone outside of the family who takes an interest in them and helps them, or they can get work, or they can do well in school and go on to college. This can be indicated by the condition of the 10th house. More on that later.

Venus can show how a poor person relates to, accepts or denies poverty, and how hard it will be for them to stop being poor, if they get the chance.

A person who has afflictions to the 2nd or 8th houses may grow up poor. This is true if Chiron is present in either house, or the rulers are afflicted, or if there are malefics in these houses. It is also a good idea to check the conditions of the Sun and the Moon, which represent the parents, since children do not and cannot create their own poverty. If either of these are afflicted, or if there are planets in the 4th or 10th houses that indicate a problem with the parents — like Saturn (absent or stingy), Neptune (mental illness, alcoholism, inability to focus and find motivation), Uranus (radical changes in the parents), Mars (making rash but not sound decisions) — then the result may be poverty, if there are afflictions to Venus.

Venus with hard aspects to Saturn indicates some sort of deprivation as a condition of the life born into. This exists either before the child is born, or shortly after. Saturn deprives of Venus things, which include creature comforts and riches. Venus with hard aspects to Uranus can show sudden changes in material fortune, though more usually through partners. A person with hard aspects to Venus from the Sun or Moon may have felt abandoned by the parent representing the planet, which can also be material abandonment. Venus with hard aspects to Mars shows a rashness and foolishness when it comes to money. Spend it before it disappears.

The partner, represented by the 7th house and Venus, can also show how likely one is to be poor after childhood. If a person choose a partner who is likely to keep them or make them poor, through bad choices, refusal to work or be supportive, or through abandonment. For example, person with Saturn in the 7th house may have a stingy partner who abandons them. A person with Uranus in the 7th house may have a partner who up and leaves and comes back through the relationship, or makes sudden decisions in his or her own interest without regard to the partner. Likewise, the native can become this partner, too.

Interestingly, I have found that people with Venus in the 12th house can end up with partners who either make them poor or keep them from rising out of poverty. This person either racks up a lot of credit card debt, or is otherwise unable to or unwilling to support social mobility. I have a chart of a young woman who had Venus, Mars, and Neptune in the 12th house. Her first husband, whom she married while still a teenager, was an illiterate former meth addict who turned hardline born-again Christian and insisted that she didn‘t work and homeschool their child. Of course, not being able to read well, there was little work he could do, and the person who could earn more money had a vagina, so she couldn‘t work. This girl was not from a place in the world where being illiterate or a meth addict was okay; so, why marry him?

Well, the preacher who married them figured it would keep them from having pre-marital sex, so that was a reason. But, one of the interesting things about people with Venus in the 12th house is that there is a tendency to think that a love that is persecuted is the truest, in that if other people are against it, they must strive all the more to keep it. While this can be true for many relationships people find socially inappropriate for whatever reason, there are times in which a relationship that is impractical and possibly destructive (hello, 12th house!) ought not to be set in stone. This is especially so for people with Venus/Neptune conjunctions, as they can confuse love with the wish for love or compassion with love. In the end, it is very hard to stay in love with a person who holds you back, drags you down, or makes life harder and not easier. A person with Venus in say, the 10th house, wouldn‘t dream of dating, much less marrying a meth addict who can‘t read. This is not something they could overlook, but the 12th house Venus is amazing at turning a blind eye to what others find to be glaring.

Last I heard, she left the first husband, was dating a man who was doing well, but the husband wasn‘t allowing the divorce, so she is waiting it out, which means that 12th house Venus is still getting what she wants, which is love against the odds.

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Born in the Wrong Place, the Wrong Time, the Wrong Planet

aspects, astrology, astrology lesson, special issues in astrology

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Those of us with natal oppositions, or two planets 180 degrees from each other, are people at odds with ourselves and our environment. If we consider that the early environment, our first relationships, and our personal origins are in the birth chart, oppositions can manifest not just as internal, but external struggles.

Just to clarify a few things:

Squares are not just oppositions that don’t suck as much. On those note, sextiles aren’t just trines that aren’t as much fun. All aspects have their own manifestations, characteristics, and possible expressions. Even though squares and oppositions tend to be challenging, they are not the same.

Consider this: two people don’t like or understand each other. In reality, they are very alike, and this is what they hate about each other. Unfortunately, they are locked in a room together, and they are tethered together with a rope around their waists. However, they‘re trying to walk away from each other. They get as far as they can until the rope is pulled tight. In order to keep away from each other, all they can do now is walk in a circle around the room. They are always on opposite ends of the room. They are experiencing the opposite ends of the room. They see out of different windows. They bump into different types of furniture.

They, stop turn around, and face each other. Each person knows that the other person is experiencing a different part of the room, but they can only see what the other person is doing. One person sees that the other is by the window. They can see the window and the other person by the window. However, because they are watching the other person, they bump into a footstool. The person by the window can see the person bumping into a footstool. What they cannot see themselves is that the sun is shining through the window behind them.

This is important. The planets FACE each other. They are looking at each other head on. They have an insight into the other planet. They know what the other planet wants to do and where they want to go. They just won’t let them. They can tell them, but they aren‘t experiencing it, just looking at it from a distance.

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