Astrology and Disposition: How Many Mean Bones In Your Body

29 Responses to “Astrology and Disposition: How Many Mean Bones In Your Body”

1. Neith says on 7/9/07 at 5:38 pm:
   

   No mean bones at all . . . not a one! Libra Sun out-of-sign conjunct Jupiter, a very wide out-of-sign square to Saturn, for what it’s worth. Small minded, meanness really bothers me a lot.

   ((Welcome back, Elsa))!! You were missed!

2. Neith says on 7/9/07 at 5:41 pm:
   

   Had to add one more thing . . . scared dogs are mean dogs. Does this translate to humans?

3. sighs says on 7/9/07 at 5:50 pm:
   

   i voted fairly mean, but was leaning toward vicious then decided that was the “youthful me”, who used to get “physical” with those who got on my nerves. pluto squares my sun (in the 8th) so i hide my mean side very well and i guess it can come across as passive aggressive? i have a lot in my chart that can come across as mean to some people… like my bluntness, or emotionally detached comments that seem cold, impersonal.

   but i don’t mean to be that way, honestly!

4. Becca says on 7/9/07 at 6:07 pm:
   

   I’m not very mean. I hope.

5. Elena says on 7/9/07 at 6:27 pm:
   

   uhh. I used to think I wasn’t mean at all. I wanted to be saint, all that Virgo working its prude magik…
   But I am, and can be mean and petty, and angry. The funny thing is the easier and more freely I let that energy flow (i express, yell, curse, think nasty thoughts) the more easily I get over it, and the love in me flows more freely and richly. So when I hate more, I love more!
   This is a very recent obeservation and is under consideration for turning into a fact. Currently is in the hypothesis section.
   I have no idea how that is indicated in my chart…sun square ascendant ..???

6. tom jacobs says on 7/9/07 at 6:46 pm:
   

   i wonder if every archetype has its corner on “mean” - when a part of us doesn’t get what it wants, and then gets angry, loses control over what it intended…i think all of them can inspire us to meanness. i mean, pluto because of a lack of power or being treated as powerless, mars because of a lack of space to express boundaries or being abused, venus from lack of being wanted/appreciated or heard…

   personally, i think i might have a few mean bones buried in here, but an abundance of libra and sensitivity to others so i feel a need to dampen things when i have these reactions. also, i take any inspiration to be mean as a cue to see what i’m not doing for myself - not venusing, or marsing enough? etc.

   not that i always succeed, but i’m open to those cues…

7. tinkerer says on 7/9/07 at 6:58 pm:
   

   Fairly mean. This is not by general disposition, tho’–my natural disposition is all love and kindness and caring. That would be my Sun–in Cancer conjunct Jupiter (generous to a fault!) conjunct Asc (at one with what I aspire to be), and lots of great aspects and not one single hard one. Ruled by my Pisces Moon, I also have a great deal of compassion at my disposal.

   So why do I consider myself “fairly mean”? Because there is a shadow side to my chart (and most charts, I suspect), and it sometimes spits bile and strikes out and can make other living things really miserable! When my normally nurturing Cancer Sun feels threatened, the defensive side kicks in. This in itself does not make “mean”…after all, Cancer mostly hides & cries when hurt, right? But it throws my Moon into a spin, and while Pisces unadulturated may play victim/martyr, my Moon is also opposing Uranus & Pluto! So yah–sometimes I’ll just hide and/or cry and/or play victim/martyr (annoying, yes! But not “mean”)–but other times I’m truly out-of-balance and those hard aspects show their dark side. I can be destructive (Pluto) and cruel (Pluto) and erratic (Uranus) and detached to the point of being without feeling at all (Uranus), and not only does having my Moon tied up like that mean that I sometimes really do FEEL those things, that those two also reside in my third house, I can communicate it to my immediate environment and sometimes do!!

   The other shadow side probably comes from having Mars square Saturn. I have a hard time keeping my physical energy moving in a flowing way. So it sometimes gets bottled up, and then BLOOEY! I will literally strike out physically, no doubt subconsciously trying to get that energy moving again but in reality, it means something is getting broken because I’m either throwing it or hitting it!

   *shrug* I’m getting better with age & self awareness…

   Really, I don’t know that the “astrology” of mean can be constrained to a single planet or sign or house. I think it is best described as a potential of the shadow side of many planets & signs, and depending on where the stresses in a chart lie is where that potential may ultimately blossom in reality, and come about in many forms.

8. Viv says on 7/9/07 at 7:34 pm:
   

   I voted “not a mean bone”, I’d like to be mean, but I’m pisces, moon conjunct neptune..etc. I have been mean in my life but rarely.
   This is a very interesting topic… I’ve been trying to embrace the dark side in me, my shadow, hoping it will STOP showing up in my relationships once I integrate it. I’ve learned cool stuff, like what it means to ACCEPT the dark side, and how in doing that you start expecting it and be ok with it/not hating people for it.
   About this subject,
   Neith put his finger on it, I think. The meanest sun signs in my experience are capricorn and scorpio, and they are definatly scared. I love capricorn, they don’t have a bad character at all but they do enjoy it when things go wrong for others, because that confirms the pattern they expect to happen, they are pessimistic. And they aren’t afraid to say it, they embrace they’re dark side perfectly.
   Scorpio likes to project their dark side on others. I think scorpios are very insecure, so I’d consider them scared. No point in pointing out how mean they can be.
   I’d vote for saturn and pluto contacts as the Mean Factor.

9. MC says on 7/9/07 at 8:13 pm:
   

   I’m a Scorpio sun and I can be vicious. If you count silence or not going out of my way to acknowledge the existence of someone who has threatened me or betrayed my trust, or even just treated me extremely disrespectfully. In that, I am viscious. I don’t scowl at them or treat them badly, I just don’t acknowledge them as part of the human race. Maybe that’s mean and maybe that’s protection. I’m not afraid of them-anymore, since I’ve got their card and although I have compassion for their small-mindedness ad forgive them, at the end of the day-they’ve lost my vote as a worthwhile person.

   I would think that “mean” in a horoscope would not necessarily be one aspect but a combination. What what would drive a person to be mean? Protection? Defense? Maybe any significant psychological blow or sustained pressure that threatens something important to a person in such houses as 1,2,3,7,8, and definitely 10 could illicit a mean type of defense or protection. Depending on how a person handles pressure it could come out physically. I’m not very versed in astrology aspects, would you think any significant harsh aspect hitting any of those houses would make a difference?

10. Althera says on 7/9/07 at 8:32 pm:
    

    I don’t know. For me it’s virgo meets Scorpio. Not only am I perfectly right, but I’m intense. I’m intensely right. So I look into you and see completely through you. And you can’t argue with me, I see spiritual truth. And if what I see and say I see hurts you, oh well, it will be good for you. It’s mean, but it will heal you in a way you’ll never thank me for (though I swear I deserve it). I’m a guardian angel of what’s better for you, but that’s the curse of Venus and Risinging in Virgo with a first house Mercury conjunct Pluto and Mars in Gemini that just has to tell you … is it mean, or is it a gift? A paradox of my life. I’m a truthsayer. Ask me, and I tell you the truth, I tell you no lie. And I guarentee it, I’m always right. (Libra Sun, Mercury.)

11. Althera says on 7/9/07 at 8:44 pm:
    

    I read this and I think, really, ask me something. I will tell you something more real than you ever wanted hear. I cannot tell you how hated and feared I am for this. When you give the truth as a gift, and it shows every ugly flaw you ever had … and yet you have this Libra sun and Mercury that just wants peace and all these Virgo pieces (including for me, Venus) that just honestly wants to show love through truth - the hard ones - that no one loves you more for hearing. You love for Truth, and Truth is seen as such a cruel thing. Honestly, who is it more cruel for? The giver who needs to give it to feel the feeling of sharing love, or the receiver who just feels intricately carved?

12. kashmiri says on 7/9/07 at 9:24 pm:
    

    I say this with nothing but respect, Althera, but: what does looking through someone mean? I understand the feeling of being right.I have had this feeling. I have understood more of people than they care to understand about themselves. I can see the insecurities. What I have learned in the process of observing humans is this: people fare better when they are offered a gentler landing in this life. And if I love someone and want to share love with them, should I not offer that person that gentler landing?

    I have a very, very well-honed opinion of meanness. My father (who also, BTW has a lot of Scorpio and Libra in his chart) knows people better than anyone I know. Anyone. He can see through any personality, any ploy, any game, any insecurity, any nuance of the physical expression that a human can have. That gift is a double-edged knife, for sure. Because it is a gift!

    One thing that he pounded (not literally) into my brain was that the SOLE rule of being human was having a kind heart. As long as you are kind, you can’t go wrong–even if you fuck up! And I live by that rule. Intention is everything.
    Like a parent to a child: you can see the weakness and confusion of a child, but still you have a kind heart and offer them a soft landing, because that kindness will offer nothing but room for growth and expansion.

13. gem says on 7/9/07 at 10:57 pm:
    

    I’ve been paying special attention the last few years on how I give love. Just love. It shouldn’t be painful and if I say something that sounds painful or hurtful, I try to act with empathy and feeling by apologizing if I’m wrong and helping them through the mess I made irregardless if I’m wrong or right. It sure wasn’t their mess and it’s not my job to do anything remotely painful to anyone.

    Sun, merc and mars in leo 5H… My light and dark side? The wonderful challenge of my growing into a good freakin’ leonine kitten.

    xoxox

14. Piya says on 7/10/07 at 12:01 am:
    

    I am interested in kindness as an ideal and I am attracted to folks who believe in kindness (and practice it and so forth). I think doing right by people is incredibly sexy.

    I don’t think I’m mean. I think in the past I’ve had insecurities that have made me lash out at people. But I am never intentionally mean (and here I also get tripped up — I suppose the question I could understand would be What lengths would you go to to put someone else down? And then of course my next question would be … What’d they do to deserve your wrath?) — it doesn’t interest me, going out of my way to be spiteful. Far too much negative energy right there.

    My Mars is in Scorpio. I’ve always felt that I could be mean. If I wanted to be. You catch more bees with honey …

15. chameleon says on 7/10/07 at 2:11 am:
    

    Great topic and responses. I’ll chime in with the every-sign-is-mean-in-its-own-way thought. There are as many different ways to be mean as to be kind…and what is mean to one person is not to another. Whether someone whispers gossip behind my back (Libra/Mercury/Gemini, maybe?) may hurt me more than Scorpio/Pluto freezouts, or Mars/Aries explosions/violence — for someone else, the freezout is the worst. All depends on the person.

    I do think the motivation for being mean or aggressive toward others has something to do with fear and being threatened - the dog example is a good one. We aren’t all that different in our emotional lizard brain from animals, and when we are threatened we have basically fight or flight responses, which in us “evolved” humans can include being mean or aggressive towards others.

    I really like the point of kashimiri about being kind. Althea, as a turbo Scorpio I totally get what you are saying and your emotion about Truth with a capital T being important resonates. However you can’t force someone to admit to a Truth they do not want to see. If you try to, you are not helping them (and will likely be percieved as very mean indeed). I think the best you can do is try to live the Truth with yourself and in your own life, and as kashmiri says, focus on being kind to others. this does NOT mean accepting their shit or letting them lie to you, but trying to force them to see things they do not want to see Does. Not. Work. one of life’s sad lessons…

16. Kundrie says on 7/10/07 at 4:14 am:
    

    Hi,

    interesting topic… what does “mean” mean? There´s such a broad range, from kicking a cat to deliberately devastating a planet just to feel powerful, to name just the obvious. So, from my personal interpretation, I don´t consider deep insight combined with sharp-edged bluntness not as “mean” in itself. It´s like a surgical knife, which can be useful and healing in the hands of a surgeon but very destructive in the hands of somebody that finds joy in just cutting others up. Both ways it hurts.

    To me, there is so much more meanness in those silver-tongued devils all into “light and love” and bells and chimes and stuff, they drowse you with seemingly good intentions just to take advantage for their own sake solely. Guess that´s Neptunes shadow, and it´s hard to detect (unless one has a very trained Plutonian instinct). Makes me fierce…Mars opposing Neptune in my chart. But i think as well that every planet has it´s shadow and “mean” side, and that a chart does not give away the spirit in which it is expressed. Jupiter´s expansiveness can literally smother all around you with no regards to their wellbeing, for instance.

    And Pluto? I love my Pluto (squaring my sun). I love that archaic trait of “getting even”, the potential of being destructive beyond all rules, I enjoy planning and plotting of getting rid of my enemies, finding their soft spots and slowly ripping them to shreds. Do I do it? No. Too much effort. But just imagining I could, knowing there´s a load of beasts inside that everybody but me is afraid of gives me strenght and some kind of inner peace. It´s a decision I make everyday, and the difference of just imagining it and actually doing it is part of my human identity. And reminds me that every time somebody wants “the light” only, somebody else gets to bear (and act out) the shadow. I want all of my parts to be part of me…

    So, I can be vicious and potentially cruel, I can be a mean fighter, if necessary, with no moral restrictions whatsoever, and knowing that helps me to choose my everyday weapons more carefully and to not let myself guide by fear or helplessness which I´ve had too much of as a child. Am I mean, as in generally? No, not at all. But it´s my own choice. Every single day.

    And, as an astrologer, I can help people to accept their beasts and make their own choices as to how to deal with their energies and potentials without judging them in the first place. Very rewarding…(especially when you´ve got Mars-Plutonians that are driven by all kinds of meanness and fear of their own powers. Such an incredible energy, and so hard to handle…)

    Ok, nuff said. Sorry for getting carried away - as I said, very interesting subject.

17. Lis says on 7/10/07 at 5:28 am:
    

    Thoughtless? I can be, but I feel so bad afterwards that I go out of my way to right what I did. Angry? With a temper? Indeed, but that flares up quickly and dies down just as quickly.

    But mean? Not at all. If someone’s done me wrong, I go out of my way to avoid them, and I let Karma handle them. Not that I don’t get angry and annoyed about what happened. I simply believe in letting nasty people do themselves in.

    I’m guessing I’m not mean because of all the Leo (Sun/Mars conjunct in the 5th) and Libra (Moon, Jupiter right on the DSC) in me. Leos, with a few exceptions (really nasty Sun afflictions–I have the displeasure of knowing a mean Leo–really is an embarrassment to the rest of our sign), are generally easygoing and kindhearted folks, even if they preen and strut all the time.

18. joana says on 7/10/07 at 7:19 am:
    

    I like to think of myself as mean, but I’m not…I’m so Saggy I’m a bit rude sometimes, but I can’t be mean. I can’t even play pranks on people

19. asanamama says on 7/10/07 at 7:44 am:
    

    Mean.Hmmmm….Saturn/Pluto aspects are the meanest.You know,scorched earth.Mean makes me think of guys like Dick Cheney,Darth Vader,Scrooge(reformed meanie),Jerry Falwell,White Supremacists,Saddam,Hitler,a nurse that took care of me when I gave birth to my son-and why are there so many mean nurses and mean teachers anyway?Is it overwork,poor life choices,pms or do these people just look for places where the vulnerable congregate?

20. Amber says on 7/10/07 at 7:45 am:
    

    I know a sadist, but I do not believe he was born that way. He was abused as a kid etc. Not that it’s an excuse of any sort, and maybe other people would respond differently. But he’s a mean bastard all the same. He has problems with real intimacy, and if someone gets too close: you can just wait for him to try and chop their head off. For myself - I don’t have a mean bone in my body, but my mind can be vicious…

21. Daeshii says on 7/10/07 at 8:01 am:
    

    I can be incredibly vicious, a talent I cultivated being a whopping 5′2″ and unable to physically win fights. But I think I’m like that bear you talked about a few months back. I don’t show my claws unless my opponent just won’t take the hint and back up.

22. kashmiri says on 7/10/07 at 8:02 am:
    

    asanamama, I have wondered the same about many of the teachers/nurses in my life!! I once lived across the street from an animal welfare worker when I was 11. That woman and her partner beat their kids, and it never failed to shock me that she was in the business of saving animals but treated her kids like prisoners.

23. Dharmaruci says on 7/10/07 at 8:35 am:
    

    I’m not sure a chart would tell you if someone is mean, though it might tell you in what way they are mean. Because being mean is is a kind of moral thing that the chart doesn’t tell you - is this the chart of a saint or a hit-man? Or is it the chart of a chicken? You don’t know in advance. You don’t know what someone has done with their squares and their trines, you don’t know what strange being with their strange history chose to be born and blend with that moment in time.

24. SaDiablo says on 7/10/07 at 11:09 pm:
    

    I’m honestly surprised by the number of people in here that admit to being “mean.” And saddened by those who don’t, because I think everyone is mean at some point in their life to someone.

    Personally, I’m not kick-a-random-animal-because-I-feel-crappy mean, but I will fuck your shit up if you want to take me on. I’m a bitch with a bad attitude and a lot of people think, incorrectly in my opinion, that ~that’s~ being mean - but I honestly make the decision almost everyday to not be what I consider mean (pulling pranks, spitting in people’s food, basically random acts of inconsiderateness).
    Also, I have to agree with Elena that the more I openly express my “mean” anger, the better I feel as a person and the less anger I feel.

    BTW, I think we need a definition of “mean” to work with - maybe an example of someone you consider to be mean, Elsa?

25. Elsa says on 7/11/07 at 4:09 am:
    

    SaDiablo - “Mean” is when a person just simply wishes to hurt another person.

26. CD says on 7/11/07 at 8:14 am:
    

    I want to believe that you don’t have a mean bone in your body, Elsa, but then I don’t know what to make of this:

    I would love to see her chart!! I bet it’s a trainwreck.

    This is (a small part of) what you wrote in the post “Edgar Cayce, the Control Freak Book, Neptune and the Grateful Dead!”

    Now, I haven’t read the book and I don’t know the author, and this isn’t really a dispute about facts (whether or not the author is crazy). It’s just… well, that sounded mean. It sounded mean when I first read it, but I didn’t really care much because I figure it’s just stream of consciousness and whatever you write is yours to write anyway.

    But now that you bring up mean bones, I think that is maybe a mean bone. Just a small one, like a pinky toe or something. But a mean bone nonetheless.

    I think it’s okay to have a mean bone or two, as long as it’s not a whole skeleton. Personally, I’d say I have a mean bone the size of a femur. But compared to my whole body, that’s not huge or anything. And there’s always a reason for my meanness (I’m hurting and reacting or whatever), but everyone has a reason. Doesn’t make it any less mean.

27. Elsa says on 7/11/07 at 8:25 am:
    

    CD - I may be perceived as mean by you and many others, however I know what drives me and “mean” is not it.

    This is not to say people are not injured by my style of communicating because they certainly are. But as for intention I am satisfied I am clear. I just have no desire whatsoever to be mean because I am completely busy with other pursuits.

28. Elsa says on 7/11/07 at 8:31 am:
    

    Oh! And specific to that comment, that is just how I communicate. And actually this is a much discussed topic in my inner circle. How brutal (mars mercury) my talk can come across that is. But the people close to me know that even if they are hurt, (and sometimes they are) it is never my intention.

29. SaDiablo says on 7/11/07 at 12:22 pm:
    

    “…the people close to me know that even if they are hurt, (and sometimes they are) it is never my intention.”
    EXACTLY! We’re working with the same definition here. Oooh, the excitement!

    Sometimes I am intentionally hurtful but, hehe, they started it! It’s usually a knee-jerk reaction when I’ve been wounded and I’m mortified and contrite once I cool off. I’m trying to get better about this, actually. It’s a holdover from a dysfunctional childhood and it doesn’t serve a purpose anymore.

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