Ben is half-white/ half-black, a gay cello player and teacher. We have been very close friends for twenty years. He’s a Scorpio, with an Aquarius rising and an Aries Moon. Here he defends (Saturn) his eccentricity (Uranus).

Ben has taught cello in the local school system for 20 years… barefoot. He plays with various symphony orchestras, same way. Barefoot. I dialed him up one night.

“Hello?”

“How are you, Ben?”

“Okay, Elsa. Except someone called me eccentric, today.”

Aquarius is known to be eccentric. “Yeah?” I asked.
Continue reading Conversations With Ben – Saturn Opposite Uranus: Defending Eccentricity

Dear Elsa,

How do you deal with a friend who’s suddenly become competitive in the workplace? Recently we were both helping a student with a question, and afterward, she accused me of trying to make her feel stupid (the student had finally gotten the right answer from me).

I was shocked that she’d had such little self control to say that to me in front of students. She apologized later, but this behavior is carrying over into the daily interactions with other employees. Does one ignore or approach this one?

Teacher
United States

Continue reading Open Question – Competition In The Workplace: Astrology-Based Advice

Kingsley wrote on the Salina, Kansas blog:

“Its good to be popular that’s for sure”

Kingsley, that is interesting because just last week I was discussing this with a friend. She said most people desired to be popular and/or famous and did not understand people who did not. I am someone who does not and the soldier is someone for whom that goes double.
Continue reading How Do You Feel About Being Popular? Good? Bad? Indifferent?

This is my pal, Ben talking over the weekend.

“Elsa, she is mean. She’s mean and she’s smart. She is a very smart women. She’s smart, she’s calculating, she’s cutthroat and she has green eyes that shine like flashlights. Oh but she’s a smart woman, however she is going up against me of course.”

I laughed.

“Yeah, so she’s in trouble. You know I’ll going to win. I always win.”

“Green eyes that shine like flashlights? That’s pretty good.”

“Well that’s exactly what she has. And they take in light too. They absorb the light rather than shine it out so just imagine that.”

“I don’t think I want to.”

“Exactly. But don’t worry, Elsa. I prevailed. The green-eyed monster has been silenced.”

I was talking to a pal, she’s a Pisces.

“I had an idea for your show,” she said. “You could have a segment called, ask a Pisces.”

I laughed.

‘Yeah and I could do it. I’m a Pisces,” she said, brightly.

“What would it be like?” I asked. Continue reading ElsaElsa – The Astrology Show… Ideas!

It’s Ben. Scorpio with an Aquarius rising. He just bought a house after renting the same house foe 20 years! He’s moving now.

Briiiinnnng Briiiiinng!

“Ben, are you busy? Are you still moving?”

“Elsa, yes I am. I have so much stuff. There are a lot of people helping me but I just have so much stuff.”

“Well you’ve lived there a long time,” I said.

“Yes I have. But I also don’t get rid of anything. I hold on to everything.”

In my head, I recalled he is still pissed off at his parents for throwing out his toys when he was a kid.

“For example, I still have my old mailbox. The one from my house on Fremont Street, where I lived when you met me? I’ve got that.”

I laughed. That was 25 years ago.

Ben and I, still catching up. We were discussing the soldier.

“Well Ben, it’s just this unfathomable level of maleness,” I said. “Maleness from another world. Chivalry I guess. My kind of maleness.”

“Tell me what you mean,” he said.

“Well for example, take that helmet incident. We were outside a bar and I was swinging this helmet at him. I was yelling. I was mad as a hornet, you can imagine.”

“Yes?”

“So we’re out in parking lot… big scene. And apparently two men started walking up behind me. They were going to grab me, the crazy banshee, I guess. I don’t know what they were thinking or going to do. I didn’t even see them coming up. I was busy swinging and swearing at him but he saw them over my shoulder in between dodging my attempts to kill him, that is and you know what he did?”

“What?”

“He yelled at them, you leave her alone! Don’t you even think about laying a hand on her! She can swing that helmet or whatever else she wants to do. Touch her, and you’ll deal with me.” I laughed. “Can you believe that? I’m standing there trying to kill him and he going to defend my right to do it. This was his organic response at 19 years old. And I had to stop and think, standing there with a helmet in my hand. Jeez. Do I really want to kill this guy? Hey. Maybe I ought to not kill this guy. Because this is an actual maaaaaaaaan I’m killin’ here,” I said with a chuckle. “And as a man who likes men, surely you can appreciate this.”

“I do appreciate it,” he said. “I like that.” (Ben has an Aries Moon)

“Yeah, so do I. So he’s got this automatic reflex to defend a woman in a culture where a man can beat his wife and his pal will take him out and buy him a beer and it really is something to behold. And he was just a skinny kid back then but that didn’t seem to matter. He acted on instinct. It’s as if he is a Mars archetype, born to defend women and children and to witness this automatic reaction… well it stopped me dead in my tracks. Who is this person? What is going on here? It was because the thing was that pure and after he did this, I quit swinging at him.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I started swinging at his bike instead.” I laughed. “You know. I still had this adrenaline going but after he defended… protected me like that, I did decide to not try to kill him. He had proved to be on my side. But you get my point. His instinct is to protect a woman and he just responds to this kind of stimulus like something going off in his head. No training about it. This was long before special forces.”

Is their something “pure” about you?

Ben and I…

So anyway, I learned a lot from the AMF and now I am still learning a lot but I am learning different things.”

“Elsa, they are very different men. They couldn’t really be more different.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Turns out I feel the same regardless. I feel like me, that is. I feel exactly the same and since the situations have absolutely nothing in common at all, perhaps this just means I’m happy on my own.” I laughed.

“Sounds like you are,” he said.

“Yeah, I am. And this is another thing I seem to be finding out. It’s pretty clear to that whatever my mixture of glee and pain I am as a person, I will constellate it no matter where you put me. And I’m getting better all the time at more glee and less pain.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah. Which means in my case, there’s no sense blaming the man for anything. He’s got nothing to do with it. It seems I’m generating my reality and it is completely independent of someone I may be involved with does or feels… says, or whatever. Which means they can do anything they want and I don’t have to worry about it, do I?”

“That follows.”

“It does follow. Oh, Elsa! If you lose this you will not be able to function. If you lose that, you will fall apart. Well guess what? All these things that were supposed to have befallen me if this or this or this other happened, did not occur. None of it manifested and I lost all that stuff, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“And look what happened? Nothing. I am still me. It just doesn’t seem to matter, Ben. This is what the evidence shows. I am this specific entity and I remain this entity no matter what happens. And if you have any questions you can look back, because I have my whole life to prove it. So I don’t think I’m going to be worrying anymore. I have figured out there is no way I can stop being this person I am no matter what happens. It’s just an impossibility.”

Ben and I, still catching up:

‘Well, Ben the main thing is, I’m learning. I have Saturn transiting the 7th house. So do you! We’re supposed to be learning about relationships and look what I learned from the AMF. I learned about painting for one thing. I didn’t know anything about painting, even though my mother painted all day long. But I became pretty sophisticated and I can thank him for that. I understand color in a way I never have. I understand art in general and what it means in a person’s life. I learned other things too. I learned all kinds of things from him, not just related to art. In fact I learned in that relationship, I’ll be ten years assimilating it.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. So now I’m still learning, but completely different things. I know a lot about soldiering these days,” I said with a chuckle. “Imagine that. Who’d have ever thought? I never have dreamed I’d understand war to the depth and degree I do now. War?” I laughed. “I am coming to understand all kinds of things that I have never really considered. I am also learning how to fight by the way. I’m learning how to be effective in general which it turns out is a very good thing to know. As if you don’t have to fight in this life.”

“You do have to fight in this life,” he said. “I have to fight all the time.”

“Yep. So rather than deny it you may as well get good at it. Because it turns out the more effective fighter you are the less likely you are to be in a fight and hey. Who knew? Well, apparently I thought about it on some level because I have fought like crazy at times but to have it conscious and integrated can only be good. I mean we all have prowess and the ability to fight and you may as well know about it. So anyway, I am learning. You?”

Learned anything from your partner or close associate? What?

I was talking to Ben last night about people who don’t like me, who as group have become one of my current fascinations. And I wish I’d have done this long ago because it’s opened a whole new world. Ben is a Scorpio with an Aquarius rising and an Aries Moon, all of which is obvious in this.

“Well Ben, their lives are unlived and now they’re mad at me because I live mine. There is no other reason to become so infuriated at someone out in the world who has never done a thing to you. Why else? Why attach all this fury to me? If a person was out living their life, they would have no time to concern themselves with mine. It would be the last thing on their mind.” Continue reading On Projecting Your Shadow and Fighting For the Right To Be An Individual