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Copyright Astrodienst AG 2000. All rights are reserved.
02-Jul-2002
I. INTRODUCTION
Once upon a time, in a less scientific age than ours, astrology was
a respected study, based on ancient and empirically compiled principles
and used by the learned for greater insight not only into the future, but
into the soul. With the coming of the Age of Enlightenment, and the increase
in man's knowledge of the material universe, it seemed for a time that studies
such as astrology, in company with other symbolic maps of the cosmos, had
become anachronisms - pieces of superstitious nonsense which reflected a
more ignorant and gullible era. But surprisingly, astrology, despite its
detractors, has refused to go the way of the flat earth, the conjuring of
demons, and the turning of lead into gold. It is alive and well, growing
in popularity, and once again meriting the respect of intelligent minds
- for it has been brought into the modern era through our increasing knowledge
of psychology and of the inner nature of man. Subjected to many centuries
of suppression and ridicule, astrology has outproven and outlasted its opponents,
and eloquently demonstrates that it has something of great value to offer
the modern individual seeking self- understanding.
In this horoscope analysis we have endeavoured, using the insights of
astrology and psychology combined with the tools of advanced computer
technology, to offer you an astrological portrait which is uniquely and
individually focussed and which aims at providing greater self-knowledge.
This is not fortune-telling astrology, but rather, psychological astrology,
developed to as deep and sophisticated a level as is possible within
the perimeters of computer interpretation. No computer can perform the
task of an experienced human astrologer. But we think you will find this
analysis a surprisingly profound and subtle interpretation of the complex
dynamics at work within you.
Shakespeare once wrote that all the world is a stage, and all the men
and women merely players. In a sense, your birth horoscope is a metaphor
for the individual play, complete with stage set, cast of characters,
and story, which lies at the core of your life journey. It might be useful
for you to remember the metaphor of the theatre as you read through the
various sections of your astrological portrait, because it can help you
to understand the real meaning of fate as it is reflected by astrology.
Fate does not lie in your being subjected to random preordained events.
It lies in the cast of characters which represent the deepest needs, conflicts
and aspirations which lie within you. No person can be other than himself
or herself; and every life experience, whether tiny and transient or major
and transformative, reflects in some way the character of the individual.
- - -
II. YOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPE
The rich array of individual attributes portrayed in your birth horoscope
is set, as it is with everyone, against the backdrop of a certain temperament
bias. We might call this bias your psychological "type", for it is a typical
or characteristic way of responding to the situations life brings you. No
one begins life whole or perfect, and all people have certain areas of strength
- sophisticated and well-adapted inner characters - to help them deal with
challenges, conflicts and problems. Likewise, all people have certain areas
of weakness - inner characters who are underdeveloped, neglected and troublesome.
Your psychological type does not remain static and unchanging through
the whole of your life. There is something within all of us - whether
we call it the unconscious, the Self, or the soul - which strives toward
balance and completeness, and which tries to integrate into our lives
all those qualities or inner characters which have been neglected or undervalued.
At certain important junctures in life, it is as though some central core,
deeper and wiser than the conscious "I", draws us into conflicts which
enable us to develop our weaker areas, so that we can become more complete
as human beings. Thus you will find that, incorporated in the following
paragraphs about your psychological type, are some suggestions about how
you might facilitate this inner movement toward a more balanced perspective
on life. Life does this for us, sooner or later. But sometimes it is more
rewarding and less problematic if we cooperate with the process.
Romantic vision and a rich imagination
You are one of life's true romantics, because your reality is the inner
world of fantasy and imagination. The limitations of daily life can bore
you, and you try at every available opportunity to inject into mundane
situations a note of the mythic and the meaningful. However, your romanticism
is constantly being challenged by another side of your personality: your
fear of disruption to your material security. Although you dislike being
tied to routines which seem inconsequential and stifling, life perpetually
intrudes upon your dreams, forcing you into conflict between your vision
and your practical limitations and needs. The great strength of your nature
lies in your relationship to the creative power of the imagination, which
enables you to peer into the future and envisage new possibilities which
are not immediately apparent in the present. Because of this, you tend
to see opportunities which others miss. You live in a world of potential,
always looking toward the next project and the next enthusiasm. But there
is a strong cynicism and worldliness beneath your romanticism which perpetually
questions these hunches and dreams, making you feel restless and discontented
whichever side of yourself you try to live.
Another strength in your character is your ability to discern subtle
connections between apparently disparate facts and circumstances, and
to see a story or a broader pattern which others might ignore. Thus you
often grasp the essence of a situation or a person instantaneously, through
a kind of "sixth sense" which is usually extremely accurate yet which
you cannot logically explain. But here too you are often at war with yourself,
for that small cynical voice in you begins to denigrate your intuitive
perceptions and can cause you to become indecisive. You often find yourself
in a typical dilemma: whether to invest your energies in a creative project
which requires trust and courage because it involves untried new ideas,
or whether to stay in a safe job which guarantees material stability yet
which bores and frustrates you. Although you are not usually foolish with
money, it is not the sole object of your efforts, and you need challenges
and inspiration in your work. Yet you cannot wholly forget about your
material security either, and are faced with the challenge of finding
a vocation which is both creatively rewarding and materially productive.
And this may take you a long time and encompass many mistakes and false
starts.
The struggle against banality and mundane limits
If you attempt to live entirely in your imagination, you may run the
risk of losing your connection with ordinary life - and with it, the capacity
for contentment. Because of your resentment of boredom and routine, you
may secretly yearn for an alternative life which is more glamourous, exciting
or meaningful - without actually doing anything concrete about your craving
for wider horizons. You also dislike having to select one thing to which
you must apply yourself, preferring to live in a kind of provisional world
- the "one day when I grow up..." syndrome, where all possibilities remain
open to you. Yet if you pursue this approach to life exclusively, you
will, with the passing of the years, feel increasingly unreal, as though
you have somehow wasted your potentials and accomplished nothing solid
in the end. Another manifestation of your conflict between the romantic,
mystic realm and the hard world of facts and objects is your complex relationship
with your own body, which often seems mysterious and frightening and which
you may periodically neglect. You may resent having to fill your time
with tasks like servicing the car and doing the monthly accounts, not
to mention the dentist and the doctor; but your lack of attention to worldly
and instinctual matters can result in constant irritations with mechanical
objects breaking down, and also in problems with your health - not because
you are intrinsically unhealthy, but because you tend to be sporadic in
your care of your own body. You tend to swing between excessive and punishing
diets and exercise routines to "master" the body, and times when you are
not even aware that it exists.
You possess a unique and complicated nature, and you need to stand in
the middle between your two extremes so that you can become a better friend
to your body and your material environment while still validating and
giving expression to your powerful creative imagination. This effort at
better balance can be rewarding and exciting. You possess a capacity to
respond to nature and to the beauty of the physical world - if you will
only stop running away from it. In very personal matters such as sexual
expression, your shyness about your body can also have repercussions,
and here too there might be a promise of greater fulfilment if you can
face more honestly the alien realm of the instincts which you sometimes
fear. Your perception of physical reality may be overtly negative, and
it is possible that family attitudes in your early life have contributed
to your undervaluing of it. Yet you possess the potential to have the
best of both worlds, and can aim very high indeed if you can learn the
art of being an ordinary mortal.
- - -
III. CHARACTER AND SHADOW
One of the most important insights gained by depth psychology has
been the revelation that people are dual in nature, and contain a basic
polarity of a conscious and an unconscious self. There is the individual
you are familiar with - the "I" that thinks, feels and acts in accustomed
ways which you identify as yourself. And there is another, hidden individual
- the shadow-side - which contains the less acceptable and less developed
aspects of your personality, and which fights for a valued place in your
life at the same time that it disrupts the complacency of your self-image.
The interplay between the conscious and unconscious sides of you is a
constantly shifting dance, changing at different stages of your life and
altering according to the pressures and challenges which you encounter.
The tension between the primary characters in your inner drama, described
in the following paragraphs, is the source of energy which provides your
life with movement, purpose, conflict and growth. There are other characters
inside you too - supporting players who blend and conflict with the main
ones to make you the unique individual you are. Where these are strongly
marked in your horoscope, we have included a description of them as well.
The story thus portrayed, with its complicated interaction of light and
shadow, represents what is really meant by individual destiny.
Confidence in the power of human will and effort
commands the stage
You have great confidence in the power of your own will to shape your
future. Fatalistic philosophies are not for you; nor are those ideologies
that transfer ultimate responsibility for one's life and one's destiny
onto society, the state, or any other external agency. You are convinced
that you possess the capacity to make your life into anything you wish,
as long as you are willing to make the necessary effort; and you find
it hard to be patient and understanding with those apparently hapless
souls who appear to be the victims of unfortunate circumstances. For you,
there is no such thing as a blameless victim, because, as the poet William
Ernest Henley once wrote: "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain
of my soul." And if a person seems to be unable to take charge of his
or her life, well, then, in your estimation, that individual is at best
blind and unconscious, and at worst lazy, apathetic and infantile. You
carry within you an heroic image of the potency of human effort; and even
if you are religious and believe in God, you are still convinced that
God helps those who help themselves.
A pride in the control and concealment of powerful
emotions
Material self-sufficiency is only one of your objectives. Even more
important is emotional self-sufficiency, for you feel things very deeply
and intensely and would prefer that no one discovers your vulnerability
because he or she might use it against you. You tend to be self-contained
and rather secretive about the things that matter to you, for you are
both proud and defensive, and take pleasure in knowing that you could
endure just about any emotional crisis with a straight back and a calm
demeanour, and no one would see your inner distress. You are capable of
considerable loyalty and enduring love, but you would prefer it if the
loved one was not wholly aware of the depth of your feelings, for you
have a horror of being controlled and manipulated through your own needs.
You are not afraid of emotional confrontations, and in fact you tend to
need some conflict now and then to release the pressure you build up inside
through so much rigid self-control. You also have a very sensitive and
suspicious side in you which makes you frightened of being taken for granted
and can provoke you into starting quarrels and scenes just to test the
relationship. But despite this emotional explosiveness, and the willingness
to wade in where others would fear such deep waters, you are still dominated
by the fear of losing control, and you will go to great lengths not to
let anyone know that they have hurt you. Criticism and disapproval from
others seem to roll off you like water off the proverbial duck; you hold
your head up proudly and obey your own inner laws. You can take this a
little too far sometimes, however; for you are occasionally too heroic
for your own good, and too intent upon displaying an unbowed head to realise
that other people sometimes need to be able to offer help as well as receive
it. And perhaps you deny too stringently your own need for ordinary human
warmth and support.
Fear of domination results in a tendency to
dominate
You possess a certain aura of personal power, which springs from the
combination of your intense but rigidly contained feelings and your uncanny
insight into other people's motives and behaviour. And there is no doubt
that you use this power - not malevolently, although sometimes you may,
quite unconsciously, manipulate others to keep them dependent upon you.
Self-control is a kind of god to you, and nothing alarms you more than
the fantasy of being emotionally, sexually or financially dominated by
another. Some of this horror of domination, and the inevitable resultant
need in you to dominate others springs from a natural attribute of your
personality - you are one of those strong, proud people who thrives on
mastering fate and carving your own path in life with your own hands.
But some of it springs from difficult experiences in your childhood, for
it seems you were subjected to subtle domination by one or both parents,
at an age when you were in no position to protest. Therefore, in your
fantasies being in the hands of another person inevitably results in humiliation,
broken pride, and a painful experience of impotence. The less conscious
you are of this fear of others' power - which is really a fear of your
own potent emotional needs - the more likely you are to use your gifts
of insight and self-discipline to keep others in thrall. And you do not
always handle this nicely, for you can be quite unconsciously ruthless
at times when you feel that your own psychological survival is threatened.
You also have a tendency to disown your need to dominate others, projecting
it onto the people in your personal and professional life, and seeing
them as controlling and ruthless; and this in turn justifies in your eyes
the dubious methods you sometimes use to ensure your own supremacy. You
can be formidable in the business or political arena, and equally effective
in the healing field; but you will need to face the profound and complex
roots of your instinct to retain power, for there is considerable pain
and anger mixed with the heroism and the pride. Blindness to your own
complicated motives results in blindness in your dealings with others;
and you run the risk of incurring rejection and anger from those you care
for in your strenuous efforts to keep them from hurting you.
The spirit of the lone adventurer
There is something about you which comes straight out of an Ernest Hemingway
novel, or perhaps a Clint Eastwood film; for you have some of the manner
and aura of the rugged lone wanderer who is a law unto himself or herself
and who cannot bear to be caged, thwarted or tamed by anyone. You have
a tenacious will combined with considerable subtlety in your mode of expressing
it, and you do not take kindly to having your freedom curtailed in any
way. If you believe someone is trying to trap or dominate you, you may
smoulder quietly for a time and do nothing; but eventually you will erupt
and break free - and sometimes you do this a little brutally. You can
be quite ruthless when you feel your autonomy is threatened, and occasionally
cruel - although this cruelty is really a form of angry retaliation against
what you feel to be an insult to your self-respect (even if the other
person did not mean it that way), and not a wanton sadism.
You are likely to possess considerable physical stamina, and may enjoy
activities where you can battle against a more powerful opponent - especially
Nature herself, the most powerful of all. Team sports are not especially
attractive to you, for there is only room for one hero on the stage; who
ever heard of a team of Clint Eastwoods? Mountain- climbing, solo sailing,
and other activities - where you can express the vein of turbulent energy
embedded deeply within you in an acceptable and harmless way - might be
very valuable for you, because life is not always going to provide continual
situations where you can have your own way. And if you unleash this primitive
wilfulness on other individuals emotionally, intellectually or physically,
they will very likely fight back and perhaps win, leaving you unjustifiably
bitter and resentful; or they will suffer injury at your hands, making
you feel guilty, mean and shabby. There is a proud and noble spirit in
you which deserves to be expressed through those channels which are most
natural to it and least harmful to you and your relationships. It is up
to you to find the channels.
The craving to shine compensates hidden fears
There has been a kind of chemical reaction within you of two opposite
qualities. The result is an urgent need for recognition and admiration
in the eyes of others, coupled with a rather dark mistrust of that very
love and validation which you have worked so hard to get. This makes you
a very paradoxical person, for you can sometimes seem radiant, warm, charismatic
and self-confident, yet you have the emotional nature of a hurt and suspicious
child. Because there is a constant ache somewhere within you, like a stone
in your shoe, you are likely to achieve much more in life than many people,
particularly along "self-made" lines - where you have slowly developed
a company, an artistic talent or a professional skill solely through your
own efforts. You take enormous pride in such creations, even if they are,
in financial terms, not spectacular; for you battle all the time against
an inner feeling of inferiority which springs from a hurt and lonely childhood,
striving against your inner daemons to fulfill the bright destiny which
you feel sure governs your life.
You are an intensely proud person, very sensitive to criticism and sometimes
unable to see any humour in your own behaviour; and your dignity will
never permit you to play the clown or the fool. Your image in the eyes
of others is terribly important to you, but it is not a simple desire
to be appreciated. You wish to be liked solely on your terms, which means
recognition of your intrinsic superiority. This makes it hard for people
to get close to you, and you are more likely to have a crowd of followers
and devotees around you than a circle of equals with whom you can be open
and relaxed. In fact, you rarely relax, being too preoccupied with fulfilling
your unique destiny and compensating for the humiliation and indifference
of your childhood environment. You are strong, resourceful and resilient;
and you are capable of considerable professional achievement. It would
be easier, however,if you could be a little less stern about your own
decorum, for allowing other people to see your emotional vulnerability
and humanness will not immediately result in the powerlessness and humiliation
that you fear. These negative experiences comprise your past, not your
future; and you certainly possess the imagination and the insight to recognise
it.
The determination to be independent makes
subordinate roles impossible
There is a wilful, competitive, and fiery quality in you which makes
you constantly crave new challenges. This quality can also make it difficult
for you to work with others in any sort of peaceable cooperation. You
want to be first and best, and if you have been unfortunate enough to
be stuck in a subordinate position, either in work or in a personal relationship,
then you will find it very difficult to sustain your patience. At best
you will eventually explode and seek something better for yourself; but
at worst your slowly accumulating anger will take its toll on your health.
You need plenty of space and freedom in which to move, and some sphere
of activity in your life where you give the orders, or where you can do
as you please. You have tremendous physical energy and vitality which
needs to be creatively channeled, for you are not suited to the quiet,
sedentary domestic life. And most importantly, you need constant challenges
against which to pit your wits and your courage, for without without adventures
of this kind you become simply contentious and irritable and start fights
with whoever happens to be next to you at the time. You are capable of
leading and directing enterprises, and should aim high in your professional
life so that you can eventually have such positions of responsibility.
Although you do not have much patience - your mind and imagination are
extremely active and you become easily bored once an initial challenge
is met - you can always hire somebody else to look after the details.
Your gifts lie in your constant generation of new ideas.
The need to make room in your life for a proud
and independent spirit
Thus you are a person of courage and pride, determined to run your own
life and carve your own opportunities, and capable of considerable professional
achievement if you can learn (at least occasionally) to compromise with
others. If you have become caught in a passive and stagnant lifestyle,
try to look more honestly at yourself and the reasons for this capitulation.
Your restless and dynamic spirit, stifled by too many strictures, can
become your worst enemy, erupting eventually through the kind of physical
symptoms which are rarely serious but reflect emotional red warning flags:
headaches, digestive problems, tension, high blood pressure and other
symbols of unconscious anger. But hopefully you know yourself well enough
to ensure that your life allows you plenty of autonomy and freedom. You
have as great a hatred of being dominated as you have love of self-reliance,
for these go together; and in many ways you resemble one of those heroes/heroines
from myth, who must lead where others follow or not, and who is driven
by an inner conviction of a special destiny. You are a dependable and
loyal friend and partner, generous with your time and your help; but sooner
or later life will challenge you on the issue of your own need for support
and assistance from others. Although you are not an easy person to help,
and are more graceful at giving than at receiving, you deserve respect
and admiration for the integrity of your self-reliance.
A secret confusion and passivity hides in
the shadow
In contrast to your intensely self-reliant and wilful nature, there
is another protagonist in your inner psychic drama. This hidden side of
you contains all those qualities which you have to exclude from your conscious
values and behaviour in order to retain a feeling of autonomy and independence.
Your shadow-side is a good deal more dependent, confused and lost than
you are; and it contains a liberal dose of passivity and a kind of childlike
trust that someone else will come along and take care of things. This
secret dimension of your personality is all that you are not in your ordinary
life; and it is likely that you find it profoundly uncomfortable to face
your own helplessness. Therefore you may unconsciously project these qualities
onto others, perceiving them as fragile souls who need your firm direction
and authority, or as hysterical self-indulgent children who play the role
of the victim because they will not, rather than cannot, help themselves.
The need for help and support from others
should be expressed rather than hidden
Thus you are really not something out of a Superman film or comic book
at all, but an ordinary human being who does not feel strong and heroic
all the time. You have marvellous qualities, of strength and self-discipline,
courage and imagination. But you, like everyone else need to depend on
others sometimes, for love and support if not for creative ideas; and
you also sometimes need to collapse and do nothing, to feel bewildered
and confused and lost for a while, to listen to your body's fatigue and
your heart's yearnings, and to allow life to bring you things freely rather
than trying to dictate to the cosmos as though you were a species of divinity.
Respecting the inconsistency of your inner laws is not so very different
from respecting fate, for on a deep level they are the same thing; and
the ancient Greeks have much wisdom to teach us about the ultimate impossibility
of stepping past one's innate human boundaries. You have the pride and
vitality of the mythic hero/heroine, but also the arrogance; and while
there may not really be a goddess of fate who gently slaps your hand to
remind you that life is a mystery and that some things cannot be controlled,
your own shadow-side will do this for you. For it contains the timeless
wisdom of the instincts which can give you the strength to change what
you can, the humility to accept what you cannot, and the wisdom to comprehend
the difference.
Another pair of important characters
The characters described so far represent in their fundamental antagonism
the main theme of your inner story. Besides these figures, there is another
pair of conflicting figures indicated in your birth chart which are likely
to be recognisable in your life. These figures are briefly described in
the following paragraphs.
A capacity to appreciate material pleasures
You have made peace with the world's requirements, and intend to enjoy
to the full whatever life makes available to you. Reality for you consists
of what you can see, touch, smell, taste, hear, and put in the bank; and
although you love physical beauty wherever you find it - in a person,
a work of art, or in nature - you do not become distressed by visions
of unattainable perfection or aspirations of transcendance. It is the
fulfillment of your desires in the here and now that interests you, not
some other incarnation or astral experience. Because of your deeply sensual
appreciation of life, you are more than likely to draw delight from the
fruits of whatever you accomplish - the grass in the next pasture does
not seem any better than what grows underfoot.
Thus satisfaction of the senses and material security
have a high priority in your life. If you are able to achieve them - which
is probable because you are inventive as well as practical - then you
have the unusual capacity for a rich and contented life. If you do not
achieve them, however, or if you are frustrated in some particular obsession
(for you do not just idly want something or someone, you must have
it, him or her), then you can become very difficult indeed, for your
sense of self-worth is rooted in your body and in your capacity to possess
what you desire. You are very tenacious, and sometimes extremely stubborn
and inflexible; and you are capable of relentlessly repeating your efforts
even when it has been made clear to you, by life or by another person,
that you really ought to try elsewhere.
Because you are proud and sometimes a little too touchy about your vanity,
a rebuff or a failure which might find acceptance in someone else can
invoke some quite nasty and destructive feelings in you. You have a long
memory for grievances and hurts. But to compensate for this, you also
have a long memory for favours and kindnesses, and can be extremely loyal
and generous to those whom you trust. You are not an easy character, despite
your surface charm; but you are a deep, complicated and vital one, and
your personal magnetism makes you stand out over blander, more colourless
souls. Life will one day challenge you about your rather lopsided tendency
to define reality by what you can hold in your hands, for the question
of the meaning and purpose of your life will eventually loom larger in
your life. But by the time these issues become relevant, you will probably
have achieved, at least on a material level, much of what you want.
A hidden longing for the intangible
In contrast to this earthy and sensuous side, there is hidden figure
in your inner psychic drama; it comprises all those qualities which you
have had to exclude from your conscious values and behaviour in order
to fully enjoy your life. This shadow-side of you focuses its eyes not
on the earth, but rather, on heaven; and if you remain unconscious of
it, it can gnaw away at you in the form of an overdeveloped Old Testament
conscience which denigrates your preoccupation with your own pleasures
and your devotion to your sensual gratification. This hidden character
can also assail you through increasing disillusionment - the nagging sense
that there was really not much point to so much self-indulgence after
all, because experiences begin to repeat themselves in the end. Thus this
shadow-side is really a profound mystical longing for a higher reality
which, because it might interfere with your earthier desires, you usually
suppress as being naive and unrealistic. Yet all the cynicism in the world
cannot erase what belongs to your own psyche, although it may lie in the
unconscious and can only get recognition when some painful crisis enters
your life and forces you to reconsider what your real purpose for living
might be.
Thus you are not quite the pragmatic and well-adjusted
sensualist that you sometimes give the impression of being. There are
unsuspected and rather strange depths in you. A strong mystical dimension
longs for a higher and more transpersonal meaning in your life, and rebels
against too great an identification with the body and the temporal things
of the earth. It is not that you should change and become somebody different,
for your firm anchoring in physical life is a great gift, and you are
likely to enjoy a happier and more contented existence than many people
who are driven by convoluted inner daemons. But expressing of this refined,
delicate and visionary side of you can enrich your life and enhance your
appreciation of the good things of the earth and of the body; for your
sensual satisfaction will be increased, rather than lessened, by the subtler
meaning you find in spiritual experiences.
- - -
IV. THE FAMILY BACKGROUND
Family myths and psychological inheritance
Although you are an individual, you have emerged from a family background.
A family is like a living organism, and it includes certain hereditary characteristics
which have passed down through the generations. It also contains a particular
set of psychological dynamics, an emotional climate which provides the first
soil in which your nascent individuality took root in childhood. Thus you
contain certain inner patterns, myths and attitudes toward life which you
have acquired from the psychological soil of your family background. In
other words, to return to our metaphor of the theatre, the characters in
your inner drama are unique; but they carry a family inheritance.
Astrology cannot tell us about physical heredity. But it can tell us
a great deal about psychological heredity, which runs through families
in the same way that red hair or blue eyes do. Psychological inheritance
of deeply rooted attitudes often takes place on hidden, unconscious levels
of which individual family members are unaware. Family myths move down
the generations as surely as a distinctive facial structure does. An example
of a family myth might be: "All the men in this family have been self-made
and successful." Or, "All the women in this family have been disappointed
by their men." Myths such as these do not need to be spoken, or even recognised,
for they pass from one generation to the next via the unconscious, and
they are communicated in a multitude of subtle, nonverbal ways. Thus the
male child born into the family of "successful" men will inherit a particular
set of expectations to which he will respond according to his own nature
and his own inner characters. And the female child born into the family
of "disappointed women" will inherit certain attitudes about relationships
which will affect her later in life if she remains unaware of this inner
script.
Because your family background is an integral part of your life story,
it is reflected in your birth horoscope. Astrology can offer considerable
helpful insight into this realm of life, for according to how conscious
you are of the interplay between your own nature and your family inheritance,
you will have more or less freedom of choice in life. Your parents themselves
are also reflected in your horoscope, although they appear not as real
three-dimensional people, but rather as images who embody a particular
theme or set of attitudes. These parental images reflect how mother and
father appear to you personally, how they operate as patterns within your
own psyche, and how they support or conflict with the unfoldment of your
own inner drama. The power of the family background should never be underestimated,
for it is not the past. It is a living present within each of us. As the
poet Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote: "Never believe fate is more than
the condensation of childhood."
The image of the father in a man's chart
Father is not only a real person. He is also the symbol of an inner
pattern or perspective through which you relate to life. The image of
your father portrayed in your birth horoscope therefore describes three
things.
Firstly, it is a subjective picture of the qualities you experienced as
most dominant in your relationship with your father - or whoever played
the role of father in your early life.
Secondly, it is a symbol of what the masculine represents to you, for
your father was the first man in your life and is therefore a powerful
unconscious influence on how you express your own masculinity and how
you relate to other men.
Thirdly, it is a picture of your own inner father-qualities: how you order
and structure your life, how you envisage and pursue your goals, how you
actualise your potentials in the world, how you express and direct your
will, and how you formulate your ethical codes and ideals; and, lastly,
how you father your own children.
His psychological absence leads to sadness
and confusion
The subjective image of your father which is portrayed in your birth
horoscope is a mysterious and complex one. You did not know your father
as a solid and supportive personality - either because he was physically
absent, or because you experienced his personality as too withdrawn, weak,
aloof or unhappy to allow you much access to his true feelings and character.
In a sense, you have had to sacrifice a genuine close relationship with
your father, and there lies somewhere within you a sad longing for what
you feel you did not have, coupled with a strong tendency to idealise
the psychologically absent parent into a mystical figure and justify his
inaccessibility by blaming yourself. Thus there is likely to be much confusion
within you about your own worth because of your early relationship with
your father, and you tend in adult life to look secretly to others as
the arbiters of your sense of self-value.
The longing for a father-surrogate
Because your experience of your father has been a poignant and disappointing
one, there are many qualities which you have had to acquire through your
own experience in life. Most importantly, your early sacrifice means that
you will need to learn how to father yourself - to find inner resources
which provide the necessary ambition, will and determination to actualise
your potentials and accomplish something worthwhile with your talents.
Because you did not experience a strong and solid model of the masculine
principle in early life, you perpetually struggle against the tendency
to drift along hoping that someone or something - perhaps a father-surrogate
of some kind - will descend from the vault of heaven and provide you with
the impetus and strength to achieve your goals. Such father-surrogates
have inevitably proved disappointing to you, for your father-image offers
you a challenge which you must meet with your own resources. In grappling
with this problem, you will find that you can willingly relinquish your
deep-seated melancholy and disappointment, and can begin to see your father
as a sensitive and fallible human being rather than a semi-divine figure
who has on some level abandoned you.
Then the more creative dimension of this father-image can come into
play within you, for your early experience of your father can open many
doors to balance your sense of disappointment. The longing which your
physically or emotionally absent father has inspired in you is really
your own yearning for a set of spiritual values by which you can live.
Behind the idealised image of your personal father stands the divine father.
Thus your sacrifice is a creative one according to the deeper meaning
of the word - to "make sacred" - for through your mysteriously inaccessible
father you have inherited a profound sensitivity to the transpersonal
world, and may find as your life progresses that the father you are seeking
is really available after all - in the vitality and boundlessness of your
own imaginative and spiritual life.
In addition to this dominant image, there is another
figure portrayed by your birth horoscope which adds further complexity
to your experience of your father.
Artistic and intellectual gifts
Your father possessed some very positive and likable qualities in your
eyes - kindness, charm, and refinement. Even if he was not conventionally
handsome, he probably seemed so to you in childhood; and many of your
values in terms of personal taste and ideals spring from your image of
him. He may have been artistically or intellectually gifted, or embodied
a social or aesthetic ideal of some kind which means a great deal to you
in adult life. He was also on some level a peacemaker, wishing for harmony
at all costs, and it is in this sphere that his ambivalence lies. For
it is probable that he was unable to confront major issues in his marriage
and in his dealings with others, and therefore seemed to you to be in
some way weak, albeit lovable. Perhaps he allowed your mother to dominate
him, and simply slipped away into the abstract world of his mind with
a detachment that you secretly experienced as disinterest or rejection.
Indecisiveness and passivity
You will need to look with insight into this dimension of your father,
for you contain within you both the best of his qualities - his refinement
and his intellectual or aesthetic or spiritual interests - and the worst
- his indecisiveness and passivity in the face of emotional confrontation.
You have much of his extreme idealism, and may tend to feel disappointed
when life requires you to be tougher and more realistic. It is important
for you to value these gentle qualities within which you have inherited
from your father, while at the same time balancing them at the appropriate
times with the necessary strength and aggression that life inevitably
sometimes requires.
There is still another image portrayed by your birth
horoscope, which in certain ways conflicts with your dominant experience
of your father.
A hidden need to dominate
Your father was not only more complicated than he seemed; he himself
was probably not fully aware of his own dark "double", a powerful and
controlling shadow-side which made him far more dominant in your experience
than his behaviour might have justified. His subtle control affected you
through emotional atmospheres and through a manipulative offering and
withholding of love and affection. Doubtless your father would have been
the first to deny such a dark and dominant face, and this omnipotent,
manipulative and controlling person is very likely not the father you
know; but if you look within yourself, you will find that your resentment
toward male authority in the world outside springs from a very personal
experience of it at home, in a form which was covert and therefore doubly
powerful.
Acknowledging your own power
It would be wrong to "blame" your father for this inner image, for it
is in your birth horoscope and he did not put it there. But it may be
important that you understand the complex and rather split figure which
represents your psychological inheritance from your father, because you
yourself possess the same inner division - between a considerate and amenable
outer personality and a powerful unconscious drive to dominate others.
You will need to achieve in life what your father probably could not:
become conscious of both dimensions of yourself, recognise that power
- particularly the subtle power that feelings can wield - is not always
negative if it is expressed honestly and with regard for the needs and
rights of others, and live openly what you are, rather than suppressing
this darker side of yourself as your father did. Your paternal inheritance
contains hidden qualities of potency and magnetism that can take you far
in life.
The image of the mother in a man's chart
Mother, like father, is not only a person. She is the symbol of
an essential principle in life, and of an inner dynamic or perspective
through which we relate to life. The image of the mother portrayed in
your birth horoscope therefore describes three things. Firstly, it is
a subjective description of the qualities most dominant in your relationship
with your mother. Many of these will be known to you, but some might be
surprising, because they reflect not only her outer behaviour, but her
inner life - that side of her which was unexpressed and therefore of great
power in terms of its effects on you. Secondly, the mother-image in your
horoscope is a portrait of what the feminine represents to you - how you
experience women, and how you relate to the emotional and instinctual
dimensions of your own personality. And thirdly, it is a picture of your
own "maternal" qualities - for men possess mothering capacities too -
your ability to nurture and care for yourself and others, your sense of
safety and trust in life's essential kindness, and your ability to flow
with time and circumstances and to know instinctively when to wait and
accept with wisdom the situations which life brings.
A force of nature
The subjective image of your mother portrayed in your birth horoscope
is that of a force of nature. It seems that, however controlled or rational
your mother appeared to be, she was really a creature of changeable feelings
and moods. Her emotional power in your early life was considerable - perhaps
even to the point where her volatile feelings pervaded the household and
swamped your own and your deep attachment to her made it difficult for
you to distinguish what you felt from what she felt. There is much that
is positive in this experience of your mother - in particular, the great
emotional richness and depth which she possessed, and which in turn you
too possess, if you are able to remain in contact with it. You could express
this colourful and sensitive side of yourself through fields of work which
involve dealing with the feelings of others, perhaps the public, because
of your acute awareness of the shifting moods and needs of those around
you.
Differentiating your own feelings from your mother's
In order to find the best expression for this highly volatile side of
your personality, you will need to be as conscious as possible of the
enormous hold which your mother possessed over you. This is particularly
the case if her natural emotionality was not held in balance by other,
more rational, qualities - for then she would have seemed to you like
the weather, incomprehensible and unpredictable, and liable to sudden
frightening shifts and changes - from balmy days to terrible thunderstorms.
With such a powerful force at work in your childhood, you will need to
disengage your own feelings and responses from those of your mother; for
otherwise you run the risk of expressing instead her feelings and characteristic
emotional reactions rather than your own.
You also depend a great deal on emotional "feedback" from others, just
as you did on your mother's, for you had to develop acute sensitivity
to her cues in order to feel safe with her unpredictability. If other
people do not respond as you expect in your adult life, you can become
confused and unsure of yourself. Learn to rely on your own instincts,
which are good ones, and try to understand that your feelings and needs
are as important, as powerful and as worthy of notice as your mother's
once were in your childhood. Your experience of your mother has developed
in you a great facility to reading the responses and needs of others,
and this gift is the creative side of your inheritance.
There is still another image portrayed by your birth
horoscope, which in certain ways conflicts with the experience of your
mother described previously.
A figure of coolness and restraint
Although it may have seemed that your mother was emotionally generous
to a fault, and gave freely to the point of total self-denial, you have
been left with an uncomfortable inner feeling that in some way you were
a burden and therefore unwanted. The contradiction portrayed by this difficult
and challenging facet of your mother-image is one which it is most important
for you to understand; for if you are unconscious of it, then you will
tend to project your feeling of being criticised, disapproved of, or unwelcome
onto others in your adult life, particularly in your sphere of work. Then
you will be convinced that there is something wrong with you, rather than
seeing the real root of your insecurity; and you may not aim high enough
because of your deep-rooted fear of failure.
Potentials trapped by conventionality
There was probably a side of your mother - perhaps unconscious in her
as well - which resented the sacrifices she had to make, and which sometimes
felt trapped, cold and unresponsive to the demands which any child inevitably
expresses. This does not mean she was a bad mother, but it means that
she was human; and if her own conventional codes of behaviour, coupled
with the standards of her upbringing, demanded that she be available at
all times to her loved ones and that she always put others first, it should
not be surprising that inwardly she might not have been capable of sustaining
such sainthood. In fact she may have envied you your youth and your potentials,
and this envy may have been one of the main components of her aloofness.
Thus it is probable that, on some level, she did reject you - not because
you were unlovable, but because she could not be honest about her emotional
inconsistencies and her resentment remained unconscious - affecting you
most powerfully. You have been given what psychology calls double messages
in childhood by your mother - apparent love on the one hand, and indifference
and even rejection on the other - and you will need to see with objectivity
and compassion that this is the basis for your own uncertainty and lack
of confidence; for you have blamed yourself. If you can face the real
relationship with your mother, then you can integrate the more positive
qualities which belong with this challenging and complex mother-image:
a powerful sense of responsibility and a determination to live according
to a "right" moral code, in ways which are best for you and nurture, rather
than hinder, your own creative expression in life.
- - -
V. RELATIONSHIP PATTERNS
Relationships are among the most mysterious, rewarding and frustrating
of all human experiences. Both astrology and psychology teach us that nothing
that occurs within a relationship is chance - neither its beginning, nor
its fluctuations and conflicts, nor its ending. But astrology cannot say
whether you are "fated" to have a good or a bad marriage, or whether you
ought to be with a Cancer or a Sagittarius. Your birth horoscope describes
what you are like inside, and therefore what kind of patterns, needs and
compulsions you are likely to bring into your relationships with others.
You cannot become somebody different, or send in your birth horoscope and
request a new set of character. But you can be more or less conscious; and
you always have the freedom to look at your own issues, to deal with needs
which are your responsibility and not your partner's, and to respond to
both joy and pain in creative ways.
The following paragraphs describe your attitudes, needs, and typical
patterns in close relationships. This description is written about you
in terms of your dealings with the woman in your life. However, if you
are involved in a close relationship with someone of your own sex, you
will find that the same attitudes, needs and patterns still apply. Whatever
your sexual tastes, you are yourself - and it is your inner nature which
ultimately dictates the course of your love-life.
The attractions of a damsel in distress
Because you love rescuing damsels in distress, you will naturally find
one to rescue, sooner or later. And you do in fact need a gentler, less
forceful and more emotionally forthcoming partner to complement your rather
fierce pride and independence. You need to protect someone, and deserve
a woman who will appreciate the rather heroic ways in which you show your
love. But having rescued her, you need to be careful not to feel bewildered,
abandoned and resentful if she shows increasing signs of self-confidence
and strength herself. You identify too much with your protective role,
and can therefore go into a sulk if your sword and shield are not required
at regular intervals. You rush into love with great passion and fervour
- even if the fire is banked and held under tight leash for the benefit
of public curiosity - and you are particularly drawn to women who have
in some way been bruised by life, or treated unfairly, and who will flower
behind the safe walls of the fortress you have built for them. But then
you become annoyed when your efforts have proven successful and your damsel
is no longer distressed.
Learning to let your partner rescue you
If you wish to make your relationships work, then you will need to face
your own fears - particularly your fear of being unlovable if you are
not heroic and strong all the time. You have considerable strength, loyalty
and chivalry in your nature, and can be extremely generous and self-sacrificing
toward those few people you love and trust. But even if the woman you
love has been hurt by life and thrives on your support, she is probably
considerably stronger than you give her credit for being; otherwise she
would not have survived at all. Try leaning on her occasionally. It would
help you to feel more secure in your own humanness, and it would help
her to be more honest about her strength and her need to take responsibility
for it.
There is more than one type of woman you find yourself attracted to,
for your relationship needs are not simple. In addition to the theme described
above, there is another relationship pattern portrayed in your birth horoscope
which is described briefly in the following paragraphs.
Attractions of a partner with spirit and imagination
You feel often drawn to women who are more ethereal than you, and who
seem to personify some mystical or poetic realm which you fear entering
yet which nevertheless fascinates you. A more imaginative partner can
help you to trust your own inner vision and spirit and to treat these
invisible things with value; and you in turn can offer containment and
a bridge to practical life. But you need to be careful of cloaking your
fear of the unknown and the invisible with an uneasy mixture of romanticising
and contempt. Your partner is not a precious piece of porcelain which
might break if you sully it with too much carnal desire. More likely she
is a woman who is as unsure of herself in the world of the body as you
are unsure of yourself in the world of the spirit; and she needs encouragement
rather than idealisation. If you do not understand this, then you may
wind up trying to live a double life where you use your partner to feed
your soul and other women to feed your sensual appetites. If you try that,
then sooner or later someone is going to get very angry. Equally, you
need to be careful not to treat your partner with contempt as a sexual
failure because you are envious of her ability to perceive a finer and
higher reality than you can. You need a woman who can help you to open
the gates of the invisible world, but she is neither above you nor beneath
you; she is equal, although her gifts are different.
A mystical longing to merge with another
Your relationship needs are rather complicated and not easily satisfied,
for there is a deeply mystical side to your love-nature that conflicts
with your independence and normally restrained feelings. You secretly
long for a union where you can merge utterly with your woman and lose
yourself, body, heart and soul; and you tend to become more emotionally
dependent than you are usually able to admit. There is a rather sacrificial
quality about your love, which makes you attracted to women who seem somehow
victimised by life, or who appear to be denizens of a more spiritual world.
You need to make more room in your personal life for magic and mystery,
and also for greater emotional openness if you wish to avoid difficult
entanglements and disillusionment. For if you cannot make the required
sacrifice of your pride, and let your partner see your longing to losing
yourself in feelings of devotion, then you may have to make a different
kind of sacrifice - the loss of the relationship itself, either because
you project all these other-worldly needs onto your lover or wife and
then feel stifled, or because your partner begins to feel starved and
seeks fulfillment elsewhere. Your feelings are far more delicate, mystical
and other-worldly than you generally show. Artistic channels are appropriate
for this subtle side of your nature, but you need more than art: You need
to bring these emotions into your partnership, and share them. You might
find that your woman has been waiting for them all along.
High ethical ideals in love
For you, kindness, courtesy and fairness are inseparable from love.
You try to treat your partner according to the same code by which you
yourself would want to be treated; and although your ideals are often
in conflict with your more self-centred nature, double standards of any
kind, sexual, emotional or material, offend your belief in what love should
be. You feel you ought to give just as much as you ask for in any relationship,
and you are very quick to pounce on any inequality perpetrated by your
woman - although such inequalities are more often your own doing. Your
highly ethical attitudes toward love blend well with your natural self-sufficiency,
for there is a certain cool detachment inherent in your insistence on
fairness and reasonableness; you condemn your own desires in the name
of your ethical principles just as you will condemn a partner who cannot
live up to your standards.
But your ideal of perfect love is too high for anyone - particularly
you - to live up to, and you tend to be easily disappointed and offended
when your woman does not measure up. You also become easily disappointed
in yourself. Although you try to be more realistic about matters of love,
nevertheless you are inclined, despite yourself, to fall in love with
a cerebral concept of falling in love, because you feel empty and depressed
and incomplete without this injection of a fine and noble goal in your
life; and then you become angry and a little judgmental when the almost
machine-like precision of your vision is disturbed by difficult feelings
and circumstances. There is too exalted and mystical an expectation implicit
in your image of love which no woman could possibly satisfy. Perhaps you
need to find a better balance between the way people - including you -
actually are and the sometimes rather rigid ideals you hold of how love
ought to be. Otherwise you will find yourself perennially restless and
constantly wondering why the Right One never seems to materialise in your
life - even though you repeatedly tell yourself that you know perfectly
well there is no such thing.
- - -
VI. PATHS TOWARD INTEGRATION
As you have seen from the preceding pages, your birth horoscope
offers a detailed and in-depth portrait of many aspects of your life.
It is also possible to step further back from the horoscope, and to use
the faculties of a telescope rather than a microscope - so that an overview
of the play comes into focus. The following provide also some suggestions
of ways in which conscious effort might make it possible for you to achieve
greater harmony between the different components within yourself, and
to strengthen that centre of the personality which psychology calls the
ego, the "I". Free will may not include the possibility of becoming somebody
else. But it might include the ability to stand firmly at the centre of
your horoscope and feel related to the different aspects of your psyche,
rather than wandering about blindly, feeling impotent and victimised by
conflicting cross-currents and impulses from within yourself and from
the world outside. Two people may have certain astrological configurations
which are similar, but one might be buffeted by his or her inner demons
like a rudderless small boat tossed on a difficult sea; while the other
individual remains somehow solid and real as a person and can therefore
navigate the boat intelligently through the ocean's changing currents.
The importance of individual creative effort
You will never find fulfillment by following the crowd. Your deepest
satisfaction in life will come from any and every effort you make to place
the stamp of your own creative imagination on what you produce - in whatever
field you work. The arts may provide you with the best vehicles for such
individual effort - writing, painting, the theatre, music - and even if
you do not wish to turn such pursuits into money-making ventures, you
need to allow time and space in your life for creative work. It is the
most important thing you can do for yourself, although there may be no
practical reward which you can put in the bank. You need to discover that
mysterious essence which makes you unique and worthwhile, above and beyond
the practical contributions you offer to others. And you will only find
that sense of self through discovering its imprint on the images and ideas
which spring from your heart and your imagination. No matter how many
worldly responsibilities you have, and no matter how concerned you are
with the good opinion of others, it is essential that you pursue something
you truly love, by yourself and for yourself. Without this deep validation
of your own soul, nothing else in your life will really make sense.
You have a strong sense of personal uniqueness which
can provide the energy and determination for the pursuit of creative work.
Your need to be independent and different may sometimes seem egocentric
in the eyes of others; but it is necessary to be egocentric in order to
create anything, for otherwise you would not give sufficient value to
your own ideas and fantasies. What more collectively minded people might
consider selfish behaviour is in fact a great asset in you, for you believe
in your right to pursue your own dreams.
Your earthy realism provides strong support for your
need to express your own creative vision; for you have a deep appreciation
of beauty in physical form and are probably gifted in some artistic way.
There are also many other creative outlets which may not go under the
conventional label of "art" but which can equally provide a reflection
of your unique imagination - including the fields of interior and fashion
design, crafts, cookery, and landscaping, to mention merely a few. Building
a business based on your own ideas and vision is also a creative act.
You are too pragmatic to starve in a garret; but creative outlets, whether
professional or as hobbies, need to be part of your well- grounded life.
The challenge of the material world
There is one area of life where any effort you make to meet its challenges
and face your fears will result in a great increase of confidence and
self-respect. It is the material world which threatens you - both from
the perspective of your ability to make money and build something solid
and financially rewarding with your talents, and from the perspective
of your body and your confidence in your physical worth and attractiveness.
And it is not as simple an issue as merely trying to make money. Perhaps
difficult material circumstances in your early life taught you not to
trust your practical abilities and your physical worth; but whatever the
reasons, you are not at home in the domain of matter, and are inclined
to swing from a tendency to make others responsible for you to a tendency
to become obsessive about your self-sufficiency. You will only learn to
have faith in yourself if you make the effort to build something on your
own, while at the same time learning to relax and let go of it when necessary.
In other words, you will develop confidence in the concrete world by facing
both success and failure, gain and loss, and discovering that you can
do more than merely survive: you can enjoy yourself in the process. The
cure for your fear is experience, and the humility to allow experience
to teach you things about yourself.
Thus one of your chief fears - of material instability
and incompetence in the eyes of others - can become an indestructible
base which offers you the worldly confidence and practical skills to ground
your creative vision. For in facing your fear of failure and collective
criticism, you will discover your capacity for tenacity, discipline and
patience; and your failures as well as your successes will strengthen
your persistence in producing creative work which not only pleases you
but is, in itself, beautiful and worthwhile.
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