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Astrology and Psychology: Projecting Your Shadow And Various Other Sundries…
Astrology in real life…
On the drive to New Mexico, I was thinking about Kate (Kate Mulvey Can’t Get A Date And It’s Because Of You!) and trying to fathom her and people like her. People who project their shadow onto others, that is. How do they get that way? Better yet, how do they stay that way?
How can a person be faced with overwhelming evidence there is some problem (such as every man they meet runs for the hills) yet continue to deny any culpability or wrongdoing? This is baffling to me. And it made me think of when I was a kid, playing cards.
I used to play cards like crazy when I was a kid. I played with adult men and I was fiercely competitive and ambitious. I wanted to win everything, every time and played those cards with every cell in my body. And here’s the thing about projection:
When I lost a hand, I did not imagine it was because the person across from me was inept in some way. Or better yet, that everyone at the table was flawed!
But this is what Kate and people like her do. And maybe via this analogy you can see if you do this, it is going to be absolutely impossible to progress. You simply have to deal with yourself.
We all project to some extent all the time. If you have oppositions in your chart (especially to personal planets) you are going to be far more prone but no one is immune. We all have a 7th house which is routinely projected. And if we’re talking about the shadow… well that’s Pluto, but any energy can be projected. Your anger for example and even your desirability!
What do you project? What’s in your 7th house?
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I just acknowledged that I have been doing this in my love relationships….my current relationship is just so important to me and I have been consciously trying to be aware of my ‘issues’. And I realized the other day on one of my meditative dog walks while reflecting on past relationships my thinking was skewed…it was ‘what I wasn’t getting’, ‘how they didn’t treat me the right way’ and ‘how I wasn’t loved the right way’, etc.. The only commonality was my negative thinking and inaction in getting what I wanted. This is both projection or and unawareness. It’s a small thing, but made me feel so much better. Esp. with aries rising…inaction is suffocating and now I can move forward.
I tend to do the opposite. I take it all onto myself and assume I did something wrong. 7th house is in Pisces, but no planets in there.
I have no planets in the 7th, but I do have an intercepted sign there (Leo). I don’t know what that means for my tendencies to project, but I do tend to assume that anything that goes wrong is my fault somehow.
Depending on the House system used, I have Uranus in the 7th House. I had to learn to incorporate Uranian qualities of independence and need for autonomy into my being before my Libra self found a stable partnership (Taurus on the DES) . . . which works a whole lot better than hanging with wild and crazy sorts!
I’ve been told, much to my amazement, that I project confidence that I can do or achieve anything. I’ve also been told I project an aura of ‘my shit doesn’t smell, LOL!!
I have Sun square Saturn in 7th/8th
Mars in the 7th in Taurus, Sun & Venus Opposition Mars, Mars in Opposition of Ascendant and Jupiter, Mars Square Midheaven and Uranus.
I don’t know what all that means YET, but for being a single planet it appears to be rather busy.
Neith, I could describe my relationships similarly as unstable until I met & married a mighty stalwart Virgo. The rock to my balloon. Though at times I do have to just cut loose.
Pluto in the 7th and more than enough oppositions in my chart. I project my insecurity onto my partners, basically fulfilling my own prophecy because eventually, they will do the thing I’m most afraid of because I won’t stop expecting it!
My only opposition is Cap Saturn in 7th house (oppose Moon). This is good for me to hear and think about…that maybe I’m projecting my Saturn(e.g., insecurities, sense of lack, coldness, authority) onto partners (that is, when there *are* partners, of which I’m often deprived). Huh. Sounds possible.
Ha, ha, ha … I have a 7th house Leo sun opposing my Ascendent. Virgo Venus and Mercury in the 7th as well. That probably means I am doing a whole lot of projecting, but I have no idea what I am projecting here. My relationships tend to be quite steady and loving, though I can say my last one (a Scorpio moon) was laced with all kinds of suspicion, and guess who cheated on me? I do think that was a serious case of him projecting his insecurities on me, definitely … honestly, I’ve had a lot of people projecting things onto me which are just not true.
To continue with why someone would do what Kate Mulvey is apparently doing, it’s actually pretty simple. There’s a strong part of people who do that that doesn’t want to be in a relationship. However society tells us, especially women, that we do, it’s the be-all-and-end-all. She’s trying to do what society tells her to do to be a ‘good girl’, to get the rewards, and yet she can’t stay true to the part of herself that wants to stay solitaire if a relationship starts working out. It’s easier to have these ships-passing-in-the-night, quick rejection scenarios. It makes it look like you’re at least trying.
I wonder if she’s laughing all the way to the bank while people ponder what she meant, whether it’s true or not true, etc.
“I wonder if she’s laughing all the way to the bank while people ponder what she meant, whether it’s true or not true, etc.”
t-carat - I hope she is!
Is there any way to deal with people like that other than ignoring them. If they’re in your family, I mean. Sometimes when I get to know people like this I start to like them enough to want to help them if I can. How do you bring something like that to someone’s attention without offending them so much that they won’t listen?
i think i project my seventh house mars. it’s really slippery anyway, in pisces and all.
one reason to go dancing. to put it back in my skin. music and sweat
i also think i project my pluto. with its lovely venus opposition. been looking more and more at that lately. because it scares me. using it. i don’t trust it. mine anyway.
interesting little puzzle in there.
i think i’ve been trying to find a model for using pluto with some kind of respect and integrity for a long time. been picking up a lot of useful information in the process.
Funny you ask this. I ended a friendship with someone I found pompous and condescending. However…with a 7th house Jupiter that is exactly on the DSC, I wonder if I come off that way to others and aren’t fully aware of it…Neptune is also in the 7th, close to the 8th house cusp, which might cloud my judgement on this subject.
Oh Elsa, projections! How can you tell if you are projecting something, or constantly attracting the same thing to yourself? It’s kind of tough distinguishing which is a genuine projection and which is true. Random projections usually don’t stick when the evidence proves them wrong. With repeated projections, however, there always seems to be enough evidence that keeps the projection from collapsing. Almost like you look for the problem in others that you’ve got yourself…and of course it’s easy to spot since it’s so familiar. I always find myself surrounded by people with mother issues, and I can’t tell if I’m projecting my own or if they are projecting theirs or if it’s both! Perhaps Kate is projecting, or she keeps attracting people who fit her projections. But what do I know, I’ve got Cappy moon conjunct neptune in 7th, in a t-square. yechhhh
>>Oh Elsa, projections! How can you tell if you are projecting something, or constantly attracting the same thing to yourself?>>
Ana - I ask an outside source. Someone I trust who has some perspective. “What do you think about this situation..?”
Yes, outside opinions definitely help. But, everyone has their own projections and motivations, especially if they are your friends. lol. It’s like a loop of projections
Honestly you’ll know if you’re projecting and really feel the need to project if you can’t be alone…I think there’s such a thing as ‘group projection’, where they imagine the sheer numbers of their believing makes fact. That is scary and I don’t like to see the awful dumbness (permeability) of the human brain!
I have a thought about Pluto and it being “projected.” Since entire generations are born with the same Pluto… perhaps it’s just a case that we grow up with a peer group that DOES in fact have the same Pluto, and thus we tend to expect/look for related traits in everyone we meet, or borrow it as an explaination of behaviour.
of course, house and aspects are more personal. I haven’t a clue what I project, based on my chart, although I suspect that something transiting me right now is making me more attractive and I’m projecting that-based on who I’m attracted to that I wasn’t before.
I’m pisces rising and find i get projected on anyway and with a stellium in 7th inc the moon opposing guess i’ve projected too at times. Learning about projection helped me recognise it more but i still get confused. Its alot easier to tell when someone is projecting onto me than the other way round.