Molly asks regarding the Artist Up Against An Angry Bastard…:

I have Sun in Aries too, and although I totally agree with you that Artist shouldn’t give up his/her career over this, I found myself frustrated by your answer.

Molly, I understand your frustration and I’m happy to explain my methodology. This gal has Saturn transiting her first house. Her Aries house that is! The house of “self”. So she is being called upon to control (Saturn) herself. She is in effect, a Capricorn rising now and she is going to have much effect with Capricorn technique at this point than she will by charging ahead, Aries style.

See, she’s got a goal…a life long goal. How Saturn is that? So she’s got her mountain to climb and the idea is to get up it…by hook or crook!

Now I am not sure if you have ever climbed a mountain but I have and can tell you that sometimes, with some mountains, you will never make it where you’re going if you don’t plot a course. You need a plan!

And the most direct route is rarely the best option. I mean how good is it if you try to climb straight up and fall and break your fucking head? Major setback, yes? But do you know what a switchback is?

It’s a path up a mountain cut sideways so you can climb more comfortably and the way I see it this gal is on her mountain doing her climb and she has now hit an impediment in the form or this crazy asshole.

So being Aries she tries to fight him. But it’s not working, is it? She’s not winning and worse, fighting with him has derailed her and caused her lose focus on what she is doing on the mountain in the first place. Is she there to fight this bastard? Or there for an art career?

So perhaps this is where you and I part ways as to what to do. As an Aries, perhaps you think she should continue to bump heads with this guy…to ram and ram and ram. But as a Capricorn, this is where I say, hold the fuckin’ phone! I can’t get over this rise / this rock/ this whatever, but I still want the top of that hill and I want it bad.

So what I’m going to do is plot a course around this motherfucker and leave him on the side of the mountain (with no canteen) to fend for himself. To play with himself. To do whatever the fuck he wants, because I am back on my goal now. I am moving along.

So there you go. This is my thinking and I think the Saturn transit supports this approach. There are times where leaving a dragon on the trail, un-slayed, does not make you a coward. What it makes you is wise.!

Dear Artist,

There is really no choice here. Can you let some angry jackass prevent you from having the career you have wanted since you were five years old? Of course not! That’s not an option. Think about it. How about you quit it all? And then what? ::shakes head:: And then nothing! So you see you are going to have to stay and fight, but I think the fight is going to be mainly with yourself.

Now it doesn’t matter whether this guy is mentally ill or not. He probably is and it may help you to think of him like that but here are some facts:

You are a strongly Cardinal person. That means you tend to be controlling and if you read your post up there, you will see what you are trying to do with this guy. You are trying to get him to follow the rules! With your 10th house Sun and Venus and Mars in Aries, you are trying to police him! And let me tell you something:

I have had very limited success in getting others to color inside the lines! In fact, I have had no success at all! Have you?

Look. Say you have a kid and you force them to comply? What happens? What happens is the first chance they get; they get the hell away from you! They escape! You simply cannot control other people. So you must control yourself. And with Saturn (control) currently transiting your first house (self), this message could not be any stronger. So here is the smart play:

The guy is crazy! Crazy people make their own rules!! They have no interest in doing otherwise. So get this into you head. He is a rule-breaking bastard and there is nothing you can do about it. In fact, it’s none of your business! Running his life is none of your business!

Understanding this, and accepting this as reality, start thinking about how you’re going to work around him towards achieving your life long goal and I think you’ll be happy with how things progress.

Good luck.

~~
Have a question? Need advice? Ask here!

I was talking to Ben today on the phone. Another stop on my Saturn transit Venus tour of my relationships. We’ve known each other for 20 years:

“Well we turned out okay. We’re all really good people,” I said.

“I try to be a good person. In the end, I guess we made it.”

“No. Well you are a good person, but you always were. You probably don’t know that, but back when we first met you were already a good person. You were a very good friend. You were a great friend to me. You were always very sensitive with me…about everything. You were always good to me, all the time. As good as a person could possibly be.”

“I’m very glad to hear that.”

“Yeah. Well that’s what you were…who you were. And you exposed me to art! This is what you need, you said. So you took care of that.”

“I’m glad, Elsa. I’m glad. When I was a kid I used to look in the mirror and pray to God I would be a good person.”

“Well you are.”

“That’s good. I am glad I’ve achieved that. But I have to go now. I’m dog-sitting and my house is dirty.”

“Bye.”

“Bye Elsa, we’ll talk again soon.”

Click.

These Scorpios. They all think they’re repulsive. It seems universal. In Ben’s case…well he’s biracial and he’s gay. He grew up persecuted as I am sure some of you can imagine. And it’s amazing how deep the wound. It is also amazing how deep the healing when it takes place.

I can imagine Ben as a little boy standing there in the mirror, knowing he’s inside out (gay) in a world that is mostly otherwise. He had to be wondering how he could possibly redeem himself, being as he was “sin” personified. The ugliest stories are always the most beautiful, aren’t they?

Dear Freelancer,

I am going to be very blunt. Yes, you can overcome it. Keep your hands off each other. Stand back! Because look. We all meet people we are attracted to all the time. And people in committed relationships who have integrity make a decision not to feed these things. And fact is, if you don’t feed the fantasy, if you don’t stoke the fire guess what happens?

What happens is, reality intrudes!! No, I don’t really want to fuck up my marriage. No, I don’t really want to fuck up someone else’s marriage. No, I probably will NOT end up with this other woman’s husband for life! And yes, there is an attraction, but so what?

This is really very simple. Do you want to be a woman who screws other women’s husbands? If this doesn’t bother you, then go ahead. Play the game and pay the price. But if not, then get your head out the clouds. And for godsakes, don’t blame astrology!

Look. I am as horny as they come, believe me. And I readily relate to people. I am a very open channel and connect all the time. However, I don’t cheat. PERIOD. I don’t cheat on people, I don’t cheat with people and this is non-negotiable.

And because of this, people trust me, implicitly. And I don’t spend my any part of my life making tearful apologies, or writhing around in my bed in regret. There is no end to the suffering I’ve avoided having made this decision when I was very young and I hope you notice this all about me – all about you, that is.

See I don’t care who the guy is, or what the astrology says: you are the one calling the shots. You are the one who decides who and how you interact with other people. The door is open because you left it that way and if you seriously can’t control yourself around this man, then cut it off.

And I think you’ll be amazed how relieved you feel if you take this path. Nothing feels better than doing the right thing.

Good luck.

~~
Have a question? Need advice? Ask here!

Well I’m back with an update. My transit is manifesting in many ways, large and small. For example, yesterday the AMF, who is a painter, gave me (another) crash course in color. What is true color, what is gray, etc. This was so I could make better clothing choices. Learning (Saturn) about what looks good on me (Venus)! So that’s a detail. It’s part of a larger picture. He’s been tweaking my appearance for a year, and this has changed my life, but there are several other things of epic proportion going on simultaneously and I thought I’d try to tell you about one of them.

An ex-boyfriend of mine is reading my book right now. The no-name Special Forces man this is. Now my book is about me, and ya’ll know I have Venus square Neptune in my chart. And if you read about Venus with Neptune, at some point you will come across the idea the people with Venus and Neptune in aspect are deceptive and also easily deceived.

Now I’ve mentioned many times I lied about my age when I was a teenager, so I could get a job tending bar and support myself. And my mother too, for that matter. So I met this guy and went absolutely crazy for him. And he was very conservative! And cocky. And know-it-all! And one of the things he thought he knew everything about, was me!

See, he’d grown up outside the US and thought he was a badass with his expanded perspective. He actually was a badass with his expanded perspective however, the assumptions he made about me were almost entirely erroneous and this is where the deception came in. He had a fantasy and I let him have it. Bottom line, I lied to him constantly by omission.

See, he was very dominant in a classic machismo sort of way. So he would tell me the way it was, the way of the world and I’d just smile and cook him some spaghetti. ::laughs::

So this went on and on and on. And of course being as it was his nature, as time passed he knew more and more and more, when in fact he was drifting further from the shore, the shore, the shore…

::snorts::

He’s a Pisces rising, so that’s a joke.

But anyway over time, the lies and omissions became oppressive to me. Because my boyfriend is no longer talking to me, but to a hologram of me. And telling him was out of the question!

Are you kidding? Tell him I’m a liar? No way!!! I have Capricorn. Fear of rejection, people! But besides that, he was just so powerful! That same Venus Neptune had him built into a God. And just as well, because he thought I was some kind of princess. Totally. So what am I supposed to do? Say, “Sorry, maaan. I don’t know who you have me mixed up with, but I’m a piece of shit?” Would you do that?? Well, would you?

Well I decided, NOT! He liked his story very much. Who am I to deprive him of it? So I held up this veil until he left town. For a year and a half! And it was crazy, see. I wouldn’t marry him, but I wouldn’t tell him why, either! I just fairy-dusted the whole thing! It was either that or hit him reality and reality?

Well reality back then was STARK. And he was flying. He was on fire with his passion and his ambition. So who am I to be mucking that up? I did not want to complicate things for him. I did not want to burden him!!

I also didn’t want to be rejected! I felt like a reject but he didn’t know that. He was madly in love with me. What if I cleared up the fog? Would he still love me?

Well, hell yes! I know that now. But back then? Forget about it. There was no way in my wildest dream I thought I was worthy of him. So you start to see what a twisted story this is. We were having the time of our lives! Why screw it up with reality!

And now here we are, decades later and he’s reading my book. And he’s going to find out some of the things I hid from him and I have a total terror about it. I literally have the same feelings now as I had then. Panic! What will he think of me when all the illusion is stripped away? And how textbook is this, for a Saturn (reality) transit to Venus (relationship / love) Neptune (fantasy)? And face your fear, bay-beeee!

And it’s not bad of course. How could this be bad? But it is difficult. On one hand, I would like him to know who I am really. On the other hand, I would just as soon he stay confused! But that’s not what’s going to happen, is it? He has started reading and he will surely finish.

And as bad as it is for me, how would you like to be him? Scorpio Moon and almost two decades in Special Forces and I still flew under his wire? I don’t think he’s going to like this at all.

And on that note…

::runs off to weed out all the wrong-colored clothes from her closet::

Dear Heart,

I think you’re on track. You’re coming to terms with (harsh) reality and the best I can advise is, you go as easy on yourself as you can. As a Capricorn, you are naturally self-chastising and this tendency is currently exacerbated by a Saturn transit. However, this is easier said than done, so I have a tip.

The energy has to go somewhere, so rather than beating yourself up and feeling unworthy and so forth, please try to focus on what you can learn about yourself. For example, with your Moon in Libra, you don’t like to be alone! And I have a great sympathy for people like you, because I am a people like you! And this is in part, why this happened.

It is also probably how you wound up in the sucky marriage as well, and with Saturn transiting your 1st house, aspecting natal Saturn in the 7th house… well, that’s the Me/We axis and the focus right now is to work on the self (1st house) as you relate to others (7th house).

So if you will get to work (Saturn) learning (Saturn) so you can be wise (Saturn) as opposed to becoming depressed and frozen in fear, (negative expression of Saturn), I think you will get a modicum of relief short term and great benefit longer term. Need a first step? What goat doesn’t?

Get some books about relationships. “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” type stuff, and start to read. This will take your mind of the immediate hurt but more importantly, it will put you in the realm of learning what you’re supposed to be learning right now. And once on the right path, the universe always supports.

Take care and good luck.

~~
Have a question? Need advice? Ask here!

Riley asks:
Just out of curiosity, would having a Venus/Saturn conjunction in a composite chart be something that can be a positive thing? Because I always read that Venus/Saturn is challenging. But also I’ve read that it could mean “stability.” Do you have any thoughts on this particular aspect with regards to composite charts?

Yes I do. I don’t judge aspects as good or bad. How can I? They only describe energy and energy is not negative or positive, but neutral until directed. Take the Mars Pluto energy. One man with that in his chart may beat his wife. Another man with the same energy may run a marathon. Or he may be a surgeon, healing people (Pluto) with his knife (Mars). Who is to say what someone is going to do with their stuff? You can’t tell this kind of thing by looking at a chart.

Specific to Venus Saturn…well having as much Capricorn as I do, I have a lot of relationships with Venus Saturn types, or Venus in Capricorn. And my relationships with these people are very solid and long lasting. So it depends on your perspective, yes? You could say I am “stuck” with these people, or you could just as easily envy my friendships which endure through the decades.

So you see it doesn’t really matter. If you’re more the type to cycle through friends, that has an up and downside as well, right? On one hand, there is more variety, but perhaps less depth and history. So bottom line, who is to judge this? It is what it is and nothing more.

My current man and I are very queer and we have a composite chart that will not quit! And this is a gift and a curse. Because at various times we have very much wanted to quit! And guess what? Too bad! ::laughs:: Too bad, so sad, SUCKERS!!!

Now don’t mistake me. I love the AMF to the point of sheer stupidity. You could not find a woman more enamored with a man. But he is difficult and I am difficult. And 95% of the time we are thrilled with this. But when the other 5% shows itself, well…

::coughs::

So here’s the point: I am a dreamy, ultra loyal, true blue commitment-phobe! He’s too much Scorpio square too much Aquarius, so he’s never sure if he should devour me or move to another country just to get some space!

Gettin’ the picture?

And it works very well most the time. Because I’ve got my 8th house to answer his Scorpio. And I have a very strong Jupiter. He wants space? Fine! I’ll go run with Kathy! I’m going to the gym! And believe me the last thing I want is some guy ringing my cell phone wanting to know what I’m doing every three minutes.

Further, it doesn’t bother him if I talk to my old loves! He is unfazed.

It doesn’t bother me when naked women, gorgeous models no less, come over to his place and strip down so he can paint them. He photographs them in his bed and I am unfazed. So you can see, we’re looking pretty good until all the sudden we’re not. And at that point, all kinds of twisted hell breaks loose and we both want out.

But we never get out. It seems we habe an un-killable thing. And I remember some time ago, on one of the worst days, I was looking at the composite chart and it hit me. “There is no way out of this thing,” I told a friend. Kathy, this was, because she studies astrology. “I mean look at that thing. Do you see a door? There’s no fuckin’ door there! What that is right there, is a closed circuit,” I said. And I’ll tell you what it feels like.

We get anywhere near each other and before you can blink a vacuum forms around us. I swear, the day I met him, I saw his brake lights come on when he tapped them while sitting in his car. I hadn’t even seen him and I knew I was in trouble! I knew this was the man like an animal can sense an earthquake. So here’s the thing…

In this case, “the relationship”, the composite chart that is, dominates. We have never been two people exchanging energy like some kind of ping-ponging back and forth. It has always been a blended thing. It has been a synergy from the first minute. Two people with no separation. And frankly, I think after a time, it exhausts us.

It acts as a vortex, see. It’s fun. It’s all kind of things that are very, very good. But it’s like being on a carnival ride, going round and round and round. After awhile it’s as if the velocity builds and it seems every 4-6 weeks or so, we’re tossed off the thing, flying through the air to land SPLAT, in our neutral corners.

Get it? It’s as if we have to escape the composite! The relationship that is. Because once on that ride…once in the composite, well it doesn’t take long before everything else gets shut out. Like scenery passing in the blur and the ride goes faster and faster until everything but the vacuum we are in become irrelevant!

And he has better awareness of this than I do. He says he needs space. He needs to get away from the “noise” so he can hear his own thoughts. That it takes time for his feelings and thoughts to come up and they haven’t a chance in hell when he’s in the vortex!

Over time, I have become aware of how important these periods of separation are for me as well. I like knowing I have a choice! I like knowing I don’t have to do x, y and z, day in and day out. Basically we get tired of thinking of each other every minute of every day so we separate, but it’s been very clumsy at times. To say the least! What do you think it would feel like to be flung from a ride at Disneyland to land on your fuckin’ head? Well, that’s what it feels like.

So I land and he lands and we’re both stunned for a time. Eventually, bruised and dirty, we get up and dust ourselves off. We set about establishing ourselves as individuals with a mixture of dread and relief.

Dread, because we offer each other 95% bliss and now we’re supposed to live without that. Relief, because come on. It ain’t cool to land on your head every six weeks!

So we are separate, but not really. It’s a head fake every single time. Who in their right mind is going to leave someone who gives them virtually everything they have ever wanted and heaps more on top of that? Who is going to walk away from the one who heals them from the inside out? The one who makes every single thing in the world seem okay, with just a kiss? That’s not going to happen.

But this is my point: When in close proximity “we”, the two individuals, become the composite which is so incredibly strong, we lose ourselves somehow. And we literally have to get away from each other in order to have a non-joint thought. In order to reestablish ourselves as individuals! But leave the relationship?

Ha ha ha ha.

Don’t hold your breath.

Dear Depressed,

Yes, you have hope. There is always hope. People pull back from the brink of hell allllll the time. Especially when they’re Scorpios! Or Capricorns like you, who astrologer Jayj Jacobs characterizes as “Scorpios in suits”. In other words, you are made of some serious stuff and I highly doubt you are going to go down and stay down.

That said, you do have very significant transits to your chart, so the thing to do is adjust your expectations. It’s like standing at the base of a tall mountain. You’re going to get up it, I’m sure. But not in a day! Or a week.

And I know what you’re thinking. “I can’t! I just want to get in bed and pull the covers over my head,” but obviously you are not going to be able to do that. With your Moon in Virgo, you are being pressured to fix this, and with the emphasis on Capricorn in your chart, the way you’ll solve this is by making a commitment to methodically solving your problems and embracing the idea that the process with be long and somewhat arduous.

That much right there will help your Scorpio Sun focus. Rather than waffling and debating what to do, you know the number one thing you need to do is to get your meds right. So put your feelers out. Use your spider senses to guide you… which doctor you might call that will have what you need.

See, I really think a commitment (Capricorn) to focus (Scorpio) on your health (Virgo) is the ticket. This is how your chart is set up, and once you start living in a way that is authentic… once you find the right path, the universe indubitably will send support. The doctor who gets your meds right will give you the name of the therapist who winds up helping you, etc. etc.

So hell yes, there is hope. And help! You only need recognize you’re not getting up this mountain without climbing and once you do that, your inner mountain goat will conspire with your Scorpio Sun and your health encyclopedia Virgo Moon, and you’ll be on your way.

Good luck.

~~
Have a question? Need advice? Ask here!

Naomi Campbell – She’s apparently been arrested! Again!

“Naomi Campbell was arrested after allegedly causing a disturbance outside a former boyfriend’s home, a British newspaper reported Friday.”

She has Mars (temper) square Pluto (explosive) in her chart, currently triggered by transiting Pluto and Moon. She’s a bad ass maaaaan.

::ducks::