This is 8th house thinking I suppose. And Capricorn. People can die you know.

I was talking to the soldier who was on the road due to pass through a city where he has friends. Good friends. Old friends. He was debating whether he should stop to see them because the time lost could potentially cause him a problem. He had me on the computer calculating time and miles and it was a toss up.

“What do you think, P? Should I do it?” Continue reading “Don’t Drive By Without Stopping” So Says My 8th House

I mentioned in the comments of the Saturn/Pluto blog I had a date rape situation come up with a man I thought was a “friend”, except it was no date. We were on purely friendly and had been for years. He was well aware of my budding involvement with another man (the soldier) but he apparently thought if I was coming to his house, I must be interested in him or more likely he figured, “I’ll try this and see what happens”.

Had something occurred it would have been a so-called “gray rape”, I suppose. What am I doing at his house if I’m not interested?

Well fact is he was very social and I am somewhat social. I felt comfortable because I’d known him for years, and entertained people at his house all the time. Plus we’re old! He was 50 and a doctor no less so it’s not like he was stupid. He made a calculated decision to sell me out, cheap.

That’s what I call it when a friend or someone you think is a friend sacrifices their friendship with you for little or no gain. But anyway, here’s the question and it’s age old but still:

What would you do if you noticed a friend had pulled away? Would you question them? Try to pull them back in? Or would you let them be, maintaining the friendship within the new frame they’d established?

Where is your Venus and how is it aspected?

Louise asked on: Plagued By Persistent Inability To Partner: Double Gemini With Venus Stressed

“I’d love to hear more about how to get your head around this. I’m still confused. Is it me? Is it them? Is it both? How do I address this? So, rather than all the drama of the old relationships that compelled me, I can be with a nice man and create the drama somewhere else . . . or not at all! Like with creative projects. Is that it?”

Louise - My idea here is that each of us has specific energy and it’s going to play in our lives one way or other. I contend all energy is neutral until it is directed and if you have a pattern of having difficulty in relationship it’s a safe bet your energy is being directed into your relationships in a way that is destructive.

When someone loves you they can and will process your (negative) energy. But there is only so much a person can take and if you want to improve your relationships it makes sense to manage as much of your stuff as you can and cut the partner and/or the friends, a break.

And this means you have to find outlets for the energy you embody that is challenging. And astrology is a tremendous aid because you can tell with a glance at a chart exactly what the problem is.

So that would be the first step. Who are you? What do you exude? What is ever-present when you’re around?

From there you look for ways to channel this so the whole kit and caboodle does not land on the head of the partner.

Do you know what it is about you that threatens your relationships with others?

I was talking to a pal, interested in forming a relationship with a person whose nature is similar to mine. I surprised myself by describing the process I go through internally when I make a new friend. I explained anyone who came in with too much too fast, a “new best friend” sort was going to make me incredibly nervous.

“When someone comes in and thinks they are going to fill up my life, I feel completely overwhelmed. I may like them initially but if my phone starts ringing off the hook, well right then I know I am not going to be able to sustain the relationship.”

She was listening intently.

“People like me have to have a chance to feel you out and if you won’t allow time for this… if you won’t allow for a natural process then why is that? I don’t know but whatever the reason, it can’t be good. And I don’t even want to know what it is. If you can’t give me time to have my feelings and process them and if you don’t need time to have and process your own feelings then I want nothing to do with you because I just know we’re entirely incompatible.”

This is my 8th house talking, I’m sure.

How (and when) do you form a friendship? What will break the deal in the process?

Speaking of lowering your standards (in the interest of having better relationships) … and of being attractive, (the persecution of astrologers) some years ago I met this gal online - Southland.

We were emailing back and forth at a pretty good clip… communication with some depth when my life went into crisis which it so frequently does.

Coping with the problems at hand I dropped the thread, then sent her a quick note to apologize some days later. This is what came back:

Don’t worry about it, E, I’m a low maintenance friend.”

Can you believe that?

This was five or six years ago when being “high maintenance” was a claim to fame. I was stunned when I read her mail. I thought her brilliant for one thing and impossibly attractive. I mean, come on. How could you not want to know someone like this?

Go, Molly, a role model of mine…

Been a rash of this lately, in and around my circle so I am hoping someone on the other side of this coin will enlighten me….

Say there is a platonic friendship between a man and woman (or the homosexual equivalent of this). And the thing is good, the thing is grand. The people are compatible and enhancing each others lives over some period of time. Significant time. 1 to 5 years, say.

Then all the sudden one of the parties makes an unwanted play for the other person, almost always destroying the relationship in the process. Have you ever been on either side of this equation? What happened?

And where is your Venus?

I just spent the last 8 weeks trying to be friends with someone who said they wanted to be friends with me. And it was confounding too. Because I was very motivated to connect with this man, but every time I reached out, he deferred or deflected me in some way.

And when he did this, I assumed he changed his mind about knowing me and retreated. And as soon as I retreated he was in my face with a present… and this went on for two months.

Ultimately I told him I just could not go on. “Do you realize every time I reach out to you, you put your hands in your pockets? Or you hide them? I have no idea what to do,” I said. “So I go away and then you reengage me…”

I went on. I explained how I felt and let him know how hard I was trying to find a way to connect with him. It was last ditch effort to forge a relationship but after listening to me he did little more than laugh, so now I am done. Two months and nothing. I got nowhere. And here’s the thing:

Now he is dejected and rejected. He appears to be baffled as to why I no longer want to pursue a relationship with him. And hurt and injured and confused. Well jeez, guy….

And today I was thinking about this and it occurred to me it is virtually impossible to be friends with someone who isn’t friendly! You know. Here’s my phone number, where is yours? You call me and I call you. If you can’t or won’t do this, if you will not allow people to connect with you emotionally, what can the rest of us do?

Are you friendly? Where’s your Jupiter, and how is aspected?

The comments on the Ugly Pants Fun blog asking what you bring to other people’s lives were freakishly interesting to me. What we offer others is so incredibly unique to each individual.

And I was talking to Denis last night about a third person who I like quite a bit. He doesn’t like the person so much and we wound up defining what it is we want from relationship and finding our requirements are wildly different.

Denis likes things to roll easy. He’s smart and personable. Denis from Cameroon is very upbeat and energetic and he likes people who are pretty much similar. I on the other hand like a little brood in my life.

I also like an edge and a curiosity. I like ups and downs and curves… I even hairpin curves in relationship. And I explained to Denis, I valued these outer edge things so highly there was no question I was going to continue to try to invest and forge a relationship with this person I’ve met who is so challenging.

“It’s worth it to me,” I said. “Or it could be. Do you know my editor, HQ? We’re good friends now but boy it sure wasn’t easy getting there. I thought we’d kill each other for sure. We spent probably a year getting bloodied, just trying to learn how to deal with each other. Believe me, he drove me right up a wall. He drove me out of my mind and it’s not like he had it any easier. In fact, he had it much worse, I think. He’s Japanese, you know. He’s polite. And you know… I was constantly swearing and he just didn’t know what to do.”

Denis laughed.

“Yeah, it’s funny now. But he told me… well, you know. He’s got one heck of a position and he can talk to anyone. But he told me when we first met he had to take like 20 minutes to center and brace himself so he could call me. He had to get his nerve up if you can believe that. Meanwhile, I’d get off the phone with him and I would be just crazed. I would want to bang my head against the wall and not even especially know why.”

“But you muscled through it?” he asked.

“Yeah. And it was worth it, by far. So I’m just saying if you want to know some of these weirdoes… super creative people, artists, eccentrics or whatever they are. Well sometimes you just have to hang in until you can see for sure what is going on. And this is how I feel about this guy,” I said. “I am going to try very hard to forge a relationship with him. And I think he will probably do the same because there is something to glean in both directions, I’m pretty sure. But I can also see why you’d take one look at this and run for the hills.”

“Uh huh.”

And why? Do you have a philosophy when it comes to relationship?

I don’t have a land line anymore. My home phone is a cell phone which my daughter takes with her on weekends when she goes with my ex.

When I get a call on the weekend, she handles it so deftly people always remark. She’s a Gemini with Jupiter in Sagittarius and she can definitely talk to anyone. She is 11 but she has no problem chatting up my friends. I try to keep her up to speed with my life, and what’s going on with what is essentially her phone.

“There is a new person calling me,” I said. “His name is Denis, he’s from Cameroon.”

“He’s from Cameroon? Cool.” Continue reading Jupiter in Sagittarius - Friends From All Over The Planet